Sunscreen

I have a fair skin and twelve years ago had a malignant melanoma removed from the back of my neck, at the hairline, so the scar is not visible. I always use a high SPF sunscreen nowadays but when I was younger there were no SPFs. During five years in Kenya, in my 20s, I used an alcohol based lotion (Skol) which was effective in preventing burning but left me with a tan. Falling asleep, unprotected, in the sun on my front burnt my back very badly and I suspect that episode might have been the origin of the melanoma. When we were children, my Mum used to plaster us with Nivea to help us to get a tan! She used olive oil to fry herself when she was young in the 1930s.

A session in the sun also apparently reduces blood pressure.
I am very fair skinned, like Nicole Kidman, and have had a basal skin carcinoma successfully removed from my face with no nerve damage and hardly any scarring. The advice I was given was:
Factor 50 sun cream to be applied before you go outside and before you get dressed
It has to have UVA and UVB protection
Wear a hat and sunglasses
Reapply it if you sweat it off after 2 hours
Cover shoulders and back.

The best suncream I have found comes in roll on form, it is for kids but brilliant for sensitive skin. It's Nivea and I pay around £5.

Oops sorry trisher pretty much what you said earlier .

My cousin is a pharmacist Nandalot and she tells me that vitamin D deficiency is a real concern and the occurrences of rickets is on the increase . So much do that they give away free vitamin D tablets to families with children . Apparently parents are so concerned about skin cancers that they are denying their children natural sunlight by making them overly cover up when playing outside .

It seems to be a certain type of skin cancer Nandalot that darker skins are more susceptible to. I am glad to hear that your daughter is being treated.

Antonia, my DD has been prescribed vitamin D pills by dr. She is now letting her, also very fair skinned, children and herself go out in early morning late afternoon/eve sun without sunscreen for short periods as advocated by Trisher.
I am quite dark skinned and getting darker as I age because l have Anglo-Indian forbears a few generations back. I hardly ever use sunscreen and am dismayed to have read elsewhere that dark skins are very prone to skin cancer.

As you say Trisha it is complicated. I found this by googling: " Wearing a sunscreen with a sun protection factor of 30 reduces vitamin D synthesis in the skin by more than 95%.[36] People with a naturally dark skin tone have natural sun protection and require at least three to five times longer exposure to make the same amount of vitamin D as a person with a white skin tone" So maybe having darker skin would also protect against dark spots. (wondering why I have got them!) Having said that, I live in the south of France and the sun does get very hot here.

Firstly historically people tended to stay out of the sun, until the 1930s a suntan was considered common- only out door manual workers would have one. Women wore hats, long-sleeved, long dresses and carried parasols if they were posh. In very hot countries they avoided the sun (Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the Mid-day sun).
In the '50s you could buy tubes of a cream called Cooltan. In the 60s Ambre Solaire appeared.
It is the hole in the ozone layer that means we need to protect our skin more carefully now. All sun ages and damages skin, so protection also helps your skin stay younger. That said some sun is essential to our body in order to produce vitamin D. Short periods outside in the early morning or late afternoon are best without protection.
There are now cases of rickets occurring in children, sadly because their careful parents have protected them with clothes and creams from all sun and they have failed to produce enough vitamin D for proper bone growth.
It is so complicated!

NandalotI am sorry to hear that your daughter has been diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency. It seems a fine line for fair skinned people to tread, between protecting against sun damage and being deficient in vitamin D, which is apparently only absorbed through the skin by sunlight. I have read that supplements are not as effective as sunlight. What has her doctor advised?

I am not an expert, but isn't it because of the thinning of the ozone layer so that the sun is comparatively stronger? Can anyone with more knowledge comment on this?
My daughter, who is extremely pale skinned, is always careful to use sunscreen and has now been diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency.