Is Your Sunscreen Really Protecting You?

As the warmer weather is approaching, and I say this merely because I'm hoping it will be soon enough! haha--everyone will be vacationing, Spring Break for colleges etc. While packing for vacation, I'm going to go ahead and safely assume that you all pack an SPF/Sunscreen. It's almost unheard of to just bake out on the beach with nothing but baby oil and iodine on, and yes I've actually seen people do this and I feel like handing them a tombstone while I'm at it, seriously are you asking for skin cancer people?! Ugh, anywho--I'm not going to fib you guys, I certainly am one of those people who uses an SPF 8 tanning oil while laying out, I like a nice golden tan, what can I say? As I am getting older, and more aware of the health risks that something so beautiful like the sun can cause, I am becoming more and more uneasy about the things my skin may be going through that may just not be visible now, but could most definitely turn into something medically dangerous later.

During some research I did recently, I came across an astonishing amount of the same outcomes of various experiments. Now, normally I wouldn't believe things like this because sometimes they are just independent studies and they have no real consistent evidence, however this is something that I scarily found nothing but consistency in, and I thought it my absolute job to share this info with you all!

In an article dated just May of last year, I learned that :

"Almost half of the 500 most popular sunscreen products may actually increase the speed at which malignant cells develop and spread skin cancer because they contain vitamin A or its derivatives, according to an evaluation of those products released today." Source : here 

Reading this really really scared me, had what I've been using all along to "protect" myself from skin cancer and harmful rays, actually been contributing to it? It is one thing to prevent sunburn, and that is what these sunscreens will do, but I am definitely more concerned with possibly contracting Melanoma or something even worse from this kind of thing. I continued on to learn that Vitamin A, found in nearly every sunscreen and marketed as it providing "anti aging effects",  has photo-carcinogenic qualities. This pretty much means that when the skin is exposed to direct sunlight, this can increase the possibility of developing cancerous tumors on the skin!

Needless to say, I will only be purchasing organic sunscreens this year for my summer vacations. There's is a website where you can see a list of some safe sunscreens and whatnot. You guys can check that out here.

Hope you can all take this matter seriously, and be preventative about your health! Happy Vacationing! xox