What does SPF and STAR RATING mean in sun protection creams?!
With all the nasty chemicals in most shop bought sun lotion brands, you are better to use organic/ natural protection on the whole family.
Having researched, we use Arbonne ABC baby sun lotion and also Badger. Both natural / organic ingredients. They both give fantastic protection and we re-apply as guided (every two hours or even more during midday sun or swimming)
With our skin being the biggest organ in the human body, we want to protect it!
We choose beauty and skin products with natural ingredients.
You can download an app called "Think Dirty" which rates products and tells you which are not kind to skin.
However we also try to get as much vitamin D naturally from the early morning sunshine. We don't block out the goodness of the sun by using a total sun blocker, there is no need for anything over SPF30 and the star rating is basically just a scheme created by Boots in exchange for a license fee!
A representative of the British Association of Dermatologists.
"The five-star rating system for UVA protection was introduced by Boots in 1992 and is also used by other brands. The rating indicates the amount of UVA rays that are absorbed in comparison to UVBs.‘This rating can be very confusing as a low SPF with five stars could actually offer less UVA protection than a high SPF with fewer stars,’ says Goad.
The EU recommended that the UVA circle logo was introduced in 2006 but it has taken a while for the changes to filter down to the products in the shops. ‘The UVA protection for each sunscreen should be at least a third of the labelled SPF,’ says Goad. ‘A product that achieves this requirement will be labelled with a UVA circle logo. We recommend people use nothing less than an SPF 30 and make sure their product has the UVA circle logo."
Here are some more facts about sun protection factor and star rating:
Huh I allways use SPF 50 when I visit a country with a hefty sun like Australia. But might reconsider doing so after your post. I do think the water resistant type is useful though, otherwise you just feel the sunscreen leaving your skin when entering the water. Have fun out there and good luck with your future posts!
Anything above 30 contains parabens and other harmful health chemicals
SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor and refers to the theoretical amount of time you can stay in the sun without getting sunburned. For example, an SPF of 15 would allow you to stay in the sun 15 times longer than you could without protection. So, if your skin starts to redden in 20 minutes without sun block, applying a product with SPF 15 increases that time by a factor of 15, meaning you could stay in the sun for 300 minutes. In addition, a higher SPF blocks out more rays — a product with an SPF of 15 will filter out approximately 93 percent of UVB rays; SPF 30 filters out about 97 percent.
Hope that helps