Surveys show younger Americans doubt the safety of sunscreen. Misinformation on social media isn’t helping.
TikTok is full of videos with influencers giving advice on health and skin care. But when it comes to sunscreen, there’s also a lot of misinformation – false claims that sunscreen is toxic and worse than the sun damage it helps prevent. These kinds of videos are all too common on social media and they’re dangerous, says Dr. Heather Rogers, a dermatologist based in Seattle. She calls some of this information just plain wrong.
“There have been several high-profile individuals” – including reality-TV star Kristin Cavallari – who have talked about how they don’t wear sunscreen, about how it’s not natural to wear sunscreen, about how sunscreen causes cancer. That’s not based in fact and it’s not accurate information,” Rogers says.
But it seems to be having an impact. Recent surveys find a sizable number of younger Americans doubt sunscreen’s safety – and are generally misinformed when it comes to sun protection.
One survey, from the Orlando Health Cancer Institute, found that 1 in 7 American adults under age 35 believe using sunscreen daily is more harmful than direct sun exposure. That’s troubling, because melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young adults, notes Dr. Rajesh Nair, a surgical oncologist with the institute who helped craft the survey.
“We’re seeing an increasing number of young and middle-aged adults with not only skin cancers, but advanced stage skin cancers,” Nair says. Conversations with his younger patients revealed many of them rely almost exclusively on social media as their source of health information, which prompted him to do the survey. His findings are in line with another survey, from the American Academy of Dermatology that found many members of Gen Z are unaware about the risks of sunburn and the basics of sun protection. For example, 37% of Gen Z respondents said they only use sunscreen when nagged by other people, and 30% mistakenly believed tanning is safe as long as you don’t burn.
Dermatologist Heather Rogers, says there’s no such thing as a safe tan. “Your body tans after there’s been DNA damage,” she explains. When you’re exposed to UV light from the sun or a tanning bed, your skin absorbs that light, which causes mutations in your DNA. “And your DNA goes, Oh, crap, I’m being injured. Is there anything I can do? And it throws up whatever pigment it has. So by the time you have a tan, you’ve already experienced DNA mutations,” Rogers says. And it’s those mutations that can lead to skin cancer and premature aging.
Rogers says some of the hesitation about using sunscreen stems from research that found chemical sunscreens can be absorbed in the bloodstream at levels higher than previously thought, and that should be studied further. Despite those unknowns, she says, “the risks with chemical sunscreens have not been shown in humans. And I think that’s really important to lead with.” “Any sunscreen is better than no sunscreen,” Rogers emphasizes.
But if you are concerned about chemical sunscreens, Nair and Rogers both advise using a mineral sunscreen like zinc oxide, which acts as a physical barrier to UV rays and is unlikely to enter the bloodstream. But please, do wear sunscreen, Nair says, because the evidence of its benefits is strong and compelling. “We know that with the use of sunscreen, we can reduce the risk of skin cancers by 40 to 50%,” he says. And if concern for your health doesn’t motivate you to slather on the sunscreen, Nair says do it for vanity’s sake. After all, sun exposure is the most common cause of wrinkles, dark spots and other signs of premature aging.
In case everyone and your mother haven’t already told you, a good body sunscreen is one of our most valuable resources for preserving skin and maintaining a (healthy) head-to-toe glow. “Proper sunscreen use is crucial for preventing sunburns, limiting hyperpigmentation, combating early signs of aging, and reducing chances of skin cancer,” says Erum Ilyas, MD, board-certified dermatologist and founder of AmberNoon.
But sunscreen isn’t always as straightforward as it seems. What counts as adequate application, and does a higher SPF always equate to a greater defense? If you use higher SPF, does that mean you can apply less sunscreen? We asked Dr. Ilyas everything you need to know about decoding that mysterious number on your sunscreen bottle.
What does SPF mean? If you find yourself confused by SPF (short for Sun Protection Factor), you’re certainly not alone. “One of the more common misconceptions surrounding SPF is that ratings tell us something about the time of sun exposure that could lead to a sunburn,” explains Dr. Ilyas. “The amount of UVB exposure varies based on the time of day you are outdoors, making it impossible for the SPF to provide a value that you could apply to the amount of time you can spend in the sun based on the time of day.”
Instead, Dr. Ilyas describes SPF as a value that’s assigned to a sunscreen product to inform the consumer of the sunscreen’s ability to prevent sunburn when it’s used. “Sunburns are triggered by UVB light, and the SPF correlates to the amount (or percentage) of UVB blocked by the product.” You can think of the number as how long the UV would take to redden your skin versus the amount of time without any sunscreen. For example, it would take you 25 times longer to burn with SPF 25 than if you weren’t wearing sunscreen.
What does SPF level mean? So, does a higher SPF level equate to greater defense? According to Dr. Ilyas, “it’s complicated.”
“When evaluating UVB charts, where SPF typically ranges from 93% (SPF 15) to 99% (SPF 100), it’s easy to see how SPF can get so confusing,” says Dr. Ilyas. “So many of my patients eager to protect their skin from skin cancer will tell me they only wear SPFs above 50. Although I tend to recommend an SPF of at least 30, I think it’s more important to consider how often you reapply the product instead of the number.”
She says this is because higher SPFs don’t necessarily offer significantly more protection. Contrary to what you may think, an SPF 100 wouldn’t give you double the protection of an SPF 50. In fact, both the EWG and the Skin Cancer Foundation agree that higher-SPF products are not that much better at shielding you from UVB—SPF 30 blocks nearly 97% of UVB radiation, SPF 50 blocks about 98%, and SPF 100 blocks about 99%. The FDA even went as far as to call sunscreens with SPF values greater than 50 “inherently misleading.”
“Not to mention that higher SPF formulas are less cosmetically elegant to apply, making them more challenging to use routinely,” adds Dr. Ilyas. “Higher SPFs just tend to cost more, meaning well-intentioned consumers are spending more but not getting enough added protection to justify the cost.”
How Much Sunscreen to Apply Of course, there’s also the matter of how much sunscreen we should actually be applying, and when. “One study suggests we should be applying 2mg/cm of sunscreen, whereas most apply only 20 to 50 percent of that amount (meaning the actual effectiveness of the sunscreen applied could likely be 20 to 50 percent lower than the SPF value listed),” Dr. Ilyas cautions.
She says the best way to address this discrepancy is to apply sunscreen generously and consistently, ideally every morning. “By making this a part of your daily routine, you’ll always have a base level of protection during the moments you didn’t expect to spend as much time outdoors or have inadvertent excess UV exposure,” she says. To streamline your routine, choose products that provide adequate sun protection and address your specific skin concerns—Hero’s Force Shield sunscreen for acne-prone skin combats blemishes and neutralizes redness. “If you are sweating or swimming, you may need to reapply your product every 40 or 80 minutes. Otherwise, plan on reapplication every 2 hours.”
Dr. Ilyas reiterates the importance of this routine regardless of the season. “Many of my patients associated UV protection with heat, which explains why I tend to see the worst sunburns in March and April.”
Because of this, she suggests checking UV levels in real-time. “Open the weather app on your phone, scroll to the bottom right side of the screen, and look at the UV index at that moment,” she says. “A UV index of 0-2 is generally considered low-risk and 3-5 moderate, then you get into the higher-risk categories. This index changes based on the time of day and location so you’ll want to reassess it throughout the time you spend outdoors.”
Source: Anna Vishnyak/Getty Images, Iryna Veklich/Getty Images
