This may come as a surprise but 75% of sunscreens are made with toxic chemicals. Specifically, they can actually release free radicals when they are exposed to sunlight. This is bad news seeing as free radicals and oxidative damage is one of the key things that you would wear sunscreen in order to try and prevent.
Usually, you wear sunblock in order to deflect the sun’s rays and specifically, the harmful UV (ultraviolet) rays that can cause mutations in the cells. These rays can damage the cell walls making your skin look older but more alarming is that they can also penetrate deeper into the nucleus of the cell where they can impact the actual DNA.
This causes mutations that then spread as the cells proliferate – thereby leading to cancer. Free radicals do the exact same thing and according to the Environmental Working Group, synthetic sunblocks increase free radical exposure. Others cause allergic reactions and damage the skin. Many can contain synthetic estrogens which can prevent men from producing enough testosterone. And all of them get absorbed into the bloodstream.
Think about that next time you’re lathering some on without really knowing what went into it! Those estrogenic compounds (including oxybenzone, methoxycinnamate, and PABA) are all also potentially cancer-causing. What many of these products do, however, is prevent the
positive benefits of the sun such as vitamin D production!
Another issue is that sunscreens aren’t actually regulated in the US – and they haven’t been since 1978. The only information you can glean from the packaging in most cases is the SPF factor but this doesn’t tell you anything about the effectiveness of the product against UVB rays. And after-sun lotions and self-tanning lotions aren’t much better! There’s no doubt about it, the best sun cream is an organic sun cream!
-Misty Cassady
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