Sunblock VS Sunscreen VS Tanning Oil – Summer Skin Saving Tips With Dallas Chambers
Isn't that tan line sexy! I made a little trip to Ute Lake to hang out for the holiday weekend and do some experimenting with different sunblock and sunscreens. This is a big question! Sunblock, sunscreen or tanning oil? What's better for what use? What brands can I trust? Well allow me to break it down for you.
What is sunblock and what is sunscreen?
SUNBLOCK
Sunblock contains physical or inorganic ingredients that reflect and scatter the UVB light and acts as a wall between your skin and the sun. Look for Titanium Dioxide or Zinc Oxide as the main ingredient. (Sunblocks do not protect against UVA rays.)
SUNSCREEN
Sunscreen contains chemicals that protect your skin by absorbing and reflecting UV rays and allows a certain range of UV light to be absorbed into the skin. Look for Parsol 1789 in many of today's sunscreen brands. It helps protect against UVA rays as well as UVB. So, you get a bit more protection.
So there is your difference between sunblock and sunscreen.
What about tanning oil? From Wikipedia:
Unlike sunscreen but like tanning oil, indoor tanning lotions accelerate the tanning process, by the promoting the production of melanin or by increasing the blood flow to the skin, thereby increasing the amount of melanin that is brought to the top layers of the skin.[citation needed] Indoor tanning lotions contain no sunscreen and offer no protection from the sun.
As you guessed, it's all about the color! If your wanting to tan, you gotta go with a Tanning Oil or Tanning Lotion.
So on now with my little science project. I spent a good deal of time in sun, sweating in the heat and swimming in the lake on and off all day, I used different products on different areas applying it all throughout the day and here's the results that my skin experienced.
This is definitely the best product for skin protection I used. I had this on the tops of my feet because there is nothing worse then a sunburn on your feet in my opinion. Let me tell you the results were amazing!
First off, I know I have white legs and even whiter feet. Which means that when they burn, they hurt! I used a tanning oil on my legs, I will be covering that later. Let's focus on the feet for right now. I went all day with out shoes, got in and out of the water and the No-Ad sunblock just kept working! I didn't even get the slightest burn on my feet. After this I really believe in this product!
This is some good stuff! I used this on my face, combined with the No-Ad sunblock. Again, I was constantly getting in and out of the water, sweating more then you could imagine in the heat, and it just wouldn't give up! It kept protecting as you can see from my face.
Notice I don't have any lines tanned in from where my glasses were on my face. It kept my tone completely even and still gave me just a hint of color in my face which is exactly what I wanted! Best part is, it really works to protect against the wrinkles caused by sun damage. I definitely recommend this product as well to keep your face pretty!
Where I wanted to get color I went with this deep tanning oil from Banana Boat. I used it on my shoulders and upper back, my arms (to get rid of my farmers tan) and my legs. I'm not to familiar with tanning or the oils used. I mean I have borrowed from friends but never seen real results or even paid attention to what I was using. I don't have a real comparison for it but I can definitely tell you what it did for me. The proof is always in the picture.
Here's the upper part of my back and shoulders. Lemme tell you, I was pretty white. The thing I didn't like about this is I got sunburned (you'll see more as we continue). It really didn't have a consistency of any sort. I think that may be just the way it works because of the curves and shape in your back creating shadows as they combine with the angle of the sun and where it's focused on your body because of the direction you are facing. Anyways, you can see sunburn in the middle and it's still fairly white where my arms and shoulder blades meet.
Here's the full shot you can really see how sunburned I got! I wanted color but I didn't want pain! You really do get your sun but it comes at a price. You burn if you rely on a tanning oil. I guess if you did little tanning session like 30-50 minutes at a time it wouldn't do this. I can tell you long term, you don't just go with a tanning oil.
This is where I actually saw great results! It completely got rid of my farmers tan line! It's burned up on the shoulder area but right there on my arm between the elbow and the shoulder it fixed the problem without the sunburn. So i guess I can say the tanning oil had pros and cons just like anything else. Like with my legs (in the picture above) I have a slight tan line but nothing drastic. I didn't even sunburn. I barely even tanned. So it's so so with this product in my opinion.
I used Coppertone Sport Sunscreen on my lower part of my back (it seems to burn worse there always). I went with the sport because it's made for being active and sweating. Although the research I did said this would be the best product, that didn't seem to be the result I got.
You can really see how damaged my skin became here it has a pretty good sting to it! Look at that tan line too! You can see I was pretty white! This sunscreen didn't do as good of a job of protecting me.
You can see how burned I am here. I don't know if it's the brand or why I seemed to get burned more with the product that was supposed to provide the most protection. I would blame it on getting in and out of the water but my face and feet had sunblock on them and I was applying them all at the same time throughout the day. The feet and face are fine, these areas are not.
So that's my photos of the aftermath. The research says that sunscreen is going to give you the best protection. I'll be trying different brands and styles as the summer continues just to get an idea of what is better I can't just call sunscreen bad with only 1 trial. The tanning oil gets you the sun you and the color you want but unless your doing quick tanning sessions your going to get burned. The sunblock was surprisingly useful! Seemed to really protect and stick to my skin so it lasted longer.
Skin protection is important there's different types of skin cancer out there that can easily be avoided if you take the time to apply some product. You don't wanna start drinking your beer at the lake without putting on the sunblock before hand you'll get drunk and forget! Now that I've got the burns and tested the protection products, it's time to test the remedies since I'll be stuck on the couch hurting for the next few days. And now that I've shared mine with you, what products work best for you when your having fun in the sun?
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