A lesson in sun protection
If you read my blog regularly, then you will know how important I find protecting your skin against the sun. Too much sun causes not only wrinkles, pigmentation and sagging skin, but also skin cancer. Now, more people in the Netherlands are dying from skin cancer than road traffic accidents. Moreover, the number of people with skin cancer has increased dramatically! Protecting yourself in the sun from its dangers is always necessary, but especially in childhood when sun damage can cause an awful lot of harm. So isn’t it strange that our children receive lessons in “road safety”, but actually learn very little about the dangers of the sun. For example, did you know that if your child is badly sunburnt once, the chances of them getting melanoma (the most dangerous form of skin cancer) is increased by 50%? Using sun beds can also do an awful lot of damage. Regular use of a sun bed under the age of 35 increases the risk of skin cancer by up to 75%! It’s not for nothing that sun beds are banned in Brazil and some states in Australia…
There are all sorts of reasons for sensitive skin. Sometimes the cause is a condition that you can’t cure completely. Sometimes the reason is an allergy to an ingredient in your cosmetics.
Are you over the age of 30 and regularly suffer with bumps on your skin (often on either side of your nose)?, then there is a big chance that you have Rosacea. And you aren’t the only one as almost 1 in 5 white women suffer from this! You can find out about other symptoms of rosacea by reading my blog “Do you suffer from rosacea?”.
There are still many myths about skincare! Not so long ago I heard a sales consultant trying to convince a customer that, if she still wanted to look good in twenty years time, she should buy a particular cosmetic product containing that special ingredient costing more than two hundred euros.
Last month, on one of the warmest days of the year, I received a visit from a photographer who came to take photos for the cover of the Reaal Insurance magazine. The theme was Autumn and I had to amend my clothes choice to fit in with this!
We spend a fortune in our battle against wrinkles. Even the World wide recession hasn’t stopped us from buying those over-priced pots. I read recently that the sales in cosmetic products was higher in 2011 than before the crisis! Even when there’s not one piece of evidence that those creams can do anything about your wrinkles.
It’s a safe bet. If I am too busy, stressed or have slept badly, then in no time I can see it in my skin. I get spots and my skin becomes more dry and dull. I suspect that there are many other people who recognise this too. Even so, the effects of emotions on the skin have long been dismissed as “nonsense”, “vague” or “unscientific”. Well, now it is no longer “unscientific”. There is enough evidence to suggest that negative emotions cause you to feel, not only figuratively speaking but also, literally bad in your skin! This is completely logical really, if you think about it, as your skin is full of nerve endings that not only detect signals from outside (cold, warm, pain), but also react to substances that are circulating around and, for example, through worry and stress, are released inside our body. What’s more, our skin is a sort of hormone factory and it’s not only stress, but also emotions such as happiness and love which have an impact on our hormone production. We can no longer deny it, skin and mind are closely related!
My daughter doesn’t like fruit. I am embarrassed to admit this and I can’t understand it at all! It just isn’t possible with our genes, because the rest of our family devours kilos of apples, oranges, cherries and strawberries weekly. Three of my children even eat whole lemons (although that’s not my personal preference).
Itchiness and bumps through exposure to the sun can test your good mood. Many people who suffer from this think that they are allergic to the sun. However, this is often not the case; actual sun allergy ( also known as PMLE) is quite rare and the symptoms usually appear after a day (or even later) and remain for days afterwards.
There are some random stories on this subject in circulation. Using anti-wrinkle creams too early will accelerate the skin’s ageing process. Fortunately, in reality, it’s a little more subtle.