Health : know everything about sun creams and the impact of the sun on the skin

Sun protection is a public health issue. Damage due to excessive sun exposure is well known today. They are serious and it is now proven. Burn, sunbathe, expose yourself to the sun for a vitamin D intake, make a point on the subject!

Solar protection since the Neolithic

Since Neolithic times, men have been protecting themselves from the sun. They coat their bodies with different substances in order to cover their skin. Ocher powders and ashes were used at the very beginning. Then, in Egypt, plenty of products are used to hedge against the sun. We read on the papyrus that we used the mesdemet.

People put it around their eyes to protect themselves from the wind, insects and the sun. Aloe Vera and jasmine oils were also used. Finally, we put lead powders or carbon. Celsus advised rubbing skin that was exposed to the sun with oil.

At the other end of the world, in Tibet, at the same time, Tibetans used tar and herb cream.

You understand that chemistry was not really developed and that only irritations and the real health and well-being problems (poisoning, respiratory problems, others) showed that the methods were not all the best.

Sun protection that we still use today

Umbrellas and cotton clothes or shawls / turbans had been around ever since. In Egypt, Mesopotamia or China, people used parasols and clothes or accessories, like the turban in Africa and India, hats with veils or broad brim in Europe and China to cover their head and face .

Sun protection during the Middle Ages

We know that high society protected itself from the sun. White skin is the one we glorify. The perfect woman has white skin, even pale. Jean de la Halle in 1276 wrote: " From head to toe, her skin is white. His forehead is broad, clear; the bridge of the nose beautiful and straight; the eyebrows form a fine arch and well drawn; the eyes, black, are large under fine eyelids; the mouth is fine, but fleshy in its center, rosy as the rose, the nape is fine, white and round, without the slightest hair.

The throat is white and long and the breasts small and hard, the arms thin and long and the hands fine and white ".

The ladies blanched their skin with clay, white lead and alum powder. We also used bleeding as a practice to make the face pale and to look sick. The ladies continued to wear hats and to cover themselves with powders and makeup of all kinds.

The historian Catherine Lanoé, of the University of Orleans, studied fifteen cosmetic manuals published between 1541 to 1782, and "found the abundance of recipes for the complexion. These were preparations to whiten the complexion, polish the skin, remove the tan, remove spots, redness, "foxing", roughness of the skin, erase wrinkles ...

These preparations had innumerable virtues and often seem to have been interchangeable.

Under the reign of Catherine de Medici, the makeup appears. Lead carbonate was used as a white pigment to make makeup. Fortunately, around the eighteenth century, its use remains limited because expensive but also because it was very toxic.

Sun protection to distinguish oneself from peasants

Paul Valéry wrote in The fixed idea in 1933: "The deepest thing is the skin". For a long time the skin has been considered as an indicator of social affluence and culture. In Western society, the skin was pale and pale to distinguish itself from rural people.

Clair means bright. Light is goodness, viriginity and purity. Until the thirties of the twentieth century, white people were imposed on the nobility, the bourgeois followed the same rule, to characterize the matte worthy of peasants, sailors, soldiers, truck drivers, nomads, pirates, etc.

Sun protection against baths of light to fight against the rachite and the anemia

Before the twentieth century during which we discovered the benefits of the sun for the synthesis of vitamin D. In the nineteenth century, we began to swim in the sea. We protected ourselves with the help of parasols, parasols evolved. Everyone kept the air pale until we learned that UV had a positive impact on humans.

In 1820, Dr. Everand Home observed the effects of the sun on the skin. He watches the heat. 38 years later, the French doctor Charcot observes that the ultraviolet rays cause inflammation of the eyes. In 1891 Widmark and Hammer recommended quinine creams.

No more secrets about the impact of UV on the skin

Professor Pierre Thomas, head of service at Huriez Hospital in Lille, specialist in UV, brings more clarity regarding UV. When asked if UVs are dangerous, he replied that "all exposures must be considered, including in the sun. You have to choose between the UV and the sun.

In the cabins, one receives sixteen times more UV than at the same time of exposure to the sun. Example: 5 minutes in the cabin equivalent to 2 hours of exposure to the sun. If you do 10 to 20 UV sessions a year, it's not dramatic.

When asked if UV is the rays responsible for skin cancer, he says, "UVA is responsible for the immediate tanning effect, while UVB causes sunburn. We often hear that UVBs give cancer and not UVA, but in fact it is only longer with UVA.

Sun protection and UV protection

UVA is no less dangerous, but more perverse. Both are carcinogenic. The problem is that, as UVA is often said to not cause cancer, sunscreens are more protective against UVB. This leads to overexposure of the public, who feels protected.

To find out if you do not need to protect yourself when you've already tanned, Professor Thomas explains: "UVA tanning, which oxidizes, colors melanin, does not protect against UVB. So we must continue to protect ourselves, otherwise we get sunburns that can be invisible. On the other hand, we pay the bill at age 40 with an aged skin.

Finally, when we wanted to know if the UV in the cabin prepared the skin in the sun, the professor was adamant: "To UV before going to the sun, it increases the damage on the skin. The real danger is that as we feel colorful, we think we are more protected from the effects of the sun, and we do not realize the impact.

This statement is a pretext alleged by the cabin vendors and an alibi for customers who are in the cabin.

Sun protection and tanning: antagonism

Since the twenties of the twentieth century, fashion was tanning. Coco Chanel took a sunburn on the Croisette. Her fans have imitated her and so on. In 1925, Josephine Baker was the face of the time. We envied her complexion.

You realize ? It was in France itself, the country of feminine elegance where everything rocked! Where the color of the tanned was the symbol of the color of the peasantry, was exactly the same place where tanning had become synonymous with high class and prosperity. Brunir assumed a denudation and came back to expose himself scandalously.

The cream "Ambre Solaire" appeared in 1935. "When Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal puts all his chemists on the ground for that, it is that in fact the fashion is already launched".

It was over the fashion of milky skin! Holidays were possible with paid holidays. Going on vacation before the rates became low cost meant a membership in the "upper class".

The democratization of travel and tanning

After the Second World War, it was the "glorious thirty". Thirty years of strong economic growth and social progress. Paid leave has been reduced to three weeks.

Since then, there are two kinds of holidays: winter holidays in the mountains and summer holidays at the sea. Expressions like "juillettistes, aoûtiens et chassés croisés" are born. During the 1970s and 1980s, travel prices began to become more democratic. Tropical travel has become democratized.

Jean Cocteau wrote: "Make me tanned body, salty; make my great pain go away (...). Sun, I bear your blows / your big punches on my neck "and" You go gray better than opium ". The sun has become an obsession and tanning a must. Bronzer began to rhyme with good health. The exotic was in vogue and the body was coated with coconut oils or vanilla.

Problem, we did not know the UV sun protection yet and we were cremating.

Tanning and evolution of sun protection

During the Second World War, soldiers in the Pacific used oil-based sun protection. It was a fat and red body, similar to petrolatum. But it was effective. The Coppertone brand has improved the composition and has been very successful with its slogan I bronze faster with Coppertone ". We stayed on the beach for a short time, but we tanned faster.

During the 1950s, we found different textures: foam, spray, oil and we obtained sun protection with anti-UV indications, always more important and more effective. In 1960 we realized that we needed to protect the skin from the sun all year long and especially during ski holidays. Garnier first launched a range for winter sports.

The new problem: sun protection

The problem with the real sun protections was that they prevented you from tanning effectively. How could we reconcile the need to prove that we were in good health and that we had money to go on vacation to really stay healthy while protecting ourselves from the sun?

The solution was brought in the 1980s after the appearance of the self-tanner ... As you well know, it gives a tanned appearance and a tan. The 1990s were marked by the appearance of solar protections waterproofs !

As for the real problem, sun protection, what do we need to know today? The sunscreen product should be selected according to the ability to burn and develop the natural body protection, ie the protective tan, and according to the level of sunshine.

You have to know the UV index. For very milky people who do not develop a protective tan, sun protection must be highly protective!

Sun protection: false problems

Sun creams are effective as soon as they are applied to the skin. Do not prepare the skin several minutes before exposure. The product should not penetrate the skin to be effective. On the contrary, sunscreen is a blanket, a dressing. It must remain on the surface of the skin to protect it.

Do not put an opaque white film to guarantee the very high sun protection. Indeed, the mask of Pierrot remains a mask of Pierrot in the theater. At the beach, to be protected from the sun and UV, apply sunscreen respecting the UV index.

Whether the texture of the sunscreen is gel, water, oil, spray, cream or stick, it does not matter. The level of efficiency does not depend on the state of protection. But it must be kept in mind that to ensure efficiency, it is better to apply thick cream.

Sun protection to read with a magnifying glass!

In order to be well informed and to know the level of effectiveness of the chosen protection, it is necessary to read carefully the list of the ingredients. The UV filters must be all the more numerous as the index is high. They must be in sufficient concentration. The higher they are placed in the ingredient list, the higher the level of effectiveness. In order to achieve an SPF greater than or equal to 50, it will be necessary to achieve an association of different UV filters.

Effective sun protection: the ingredients that must be avoided!

The presence of alcohol in the sunscreen product must be banned because it can penetrate UV filters into the skin. Also, vegetable oils rich in oleic acid must not be present either. As an example, we can cite the baobab or the palaver tree.

The oil extracted from its seeds is rich in vitamins A, E and D3. It is given anti-aging and healing properties. Note also that this oil is rich in oleic acid.

Some photosensitizing plant extracts are, of course, to be banned. The scandal of the Bergasol affair is still in the memory of many people. This case resulted in the ban of psoralens in sunscreen products.

Plants such as St. John's wort or angelica should not be present in said products.

It will be understood: a light and fluid texture does not augur a significant protective effect. A simple formula, rich in UV filters and containing neither alcohol nor plant extracts is preferred.

So, a thick layer application on the discovered areas, a renewed application every two hours associated with the wearing of a hat and sunglasses, are advisable. Far from any controversy, it should be borne in mind that the use of sunscreen products is a public health approach, and that we must offer consumers products that are efficient and completely harmless.