Natural Sun Care

Read more for reasons why you need to go natural.... Katie Sheen a Nutritional Therapist in our clinic says

“Why use organic skincare? Because everything you put on your skin is absorbed into your cells and ultimately into your bloodstream. It is therefore crucial that we do not use products full of potentially toxic ingredients; there are so many concerns about certain additives and chemical constituents of non-organic skincare, an industry which is not regulated from a health perspective.

For example, your blood is filtered by your liver, and liver function is crucial to health and wellbeing; it has many different functions, including changing potentially toxic substances into forms which can be safely excreted through the bowel, helping to maintain healthy levels of hormones in our bodies, and of course the well known function of protecting us from the detrimental effects of excess alcohol. We live in such a polluted world that every step we can take to reduce the toxic load that our liver has to deal with is self-supportive.”

Understand It…

Did you know that SPF 50 sun creams do not offer twice the protection of SPF 25? Nor do SPF 30 sun creams offer twice the protection of SPF 15.

Applied properly, SPF 15 filters out 93% of UVB rays, while SPF30 filters out 97%. Even SPF 100 only offers 99% protection against UVB rays. In reality, the level of additional protection offered by SPF ratings higher than 25 is insignificant as even at SPF25 only 4% of the UVB light is getting through to the skin. ^{^[i]}

So it’s far more important to apply sun creams regularly and liberally.

Many natural brands do not produce creams with an SPF higher than 25. This is because the use of natural protective agents prohibits this, but we find that this is not a problem as the difference between a factor 25 and 50 is only about 3%. In a chemical sun cream the higher the SPF the greater the number of chemicals.

More reasons to go natural?

At Alexandra Worsley we only recommend natural, chemical free sun creams which contain ingredients that actually support your skin rather than irritate it. This in turn decreases the burden of unnecessary toxins. It is now recognized that UVA rays are responsible for causing much of the long term damage to the skin. The use of very high factor SPF sun products may encourage people to spend more time in the sun than they should, this of course causes the skin to age.

Did you know your sun cream could be causing itchy skin or prickly heat?

We have a lot of customers whose skin gets itchy or allergic in the sun, symptoms range from a small rash to the irritation and annoyance of prickly heat. This applies to both adults and children. Chemical sun lotions often contain mineral oils and silicones that form a synthetic barrier on the skin, like wrapping it in cling film – a major cause of prickly heat. If you have any kind of skin reaction in the sun try switching to chemical free sun cream and see if the problem goes away. Look out for Green Peoples No Scent range. If itching does not improve let us know, we will be able to help further.

Children with eczema will love our natural sun creams even more because...

…they calm rather than irritate their skin. Many of our customers are children with sensitive skin or eczema. Often the combination of safe sun exposure, sea water and natural sun cream actually improves the condition of the skin.

Are You Using Enough sunscrean?

You get the advertised SPF from your sun cream only if you are using enough. If not the protection is reduced. As a rough guide an adult will need 22-30 grams of sun lotion to give the claimed protection over the whole body. This should be re-applied every 2–3 hours.ⁱ

Take a look at our range of natural and organic sun creams, take care of yourself and we wish you very Happy Holidays!

^{^[i]} Green People (June 2011) Summer News June 2011