How to Wear Sunscreen in Winter

Wearing sunscreen in the winter is very important to protect your skin, not just summertime. The sun's rays can still penetrate through dark stormy clouds and windows. UVA rays cause aging, while UVB rays cause sunburns. Do you know if your sunscreen protects you adequately from both UVA and UVB rays? The best anti-aging skincare product is sunscreen, so make sure you apply everyday of the year, rain or shine, winter or summer.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Broad spectrum UVA and UVB sunscreen
• Study active ingredients

1. 
    

   First check to make sure your sunscreen is stable. A stable sunscreen means it will last for a couple hours rather than just an hour. Look at ingredients to see if your sunscreen is stable.

2. 
    

   Check the percentages of the active ingredients, which will tell you the estimated UVA protection you are getting. SPF tells you the protection from UVB rays. The higher percentages of active ingredients the better.

3. 
    

   Make sure your physical sunscreen has both titanium oxide and zinc oxide. Chemical sunscreens should have avobenzone and octocrylene. Octinoxate aka ethyhexyl methoxycinnamate, destabilizes avobenzone. Do not buy a sunscreen that has avobenzone and octinoxate, think of it like octiNOxate. The majority of chemical sunscreens have a higher UVA protection than physical sunscreens.

4. 
    

   Wear a thicker sunscreen if you skin becomes drier in the winter. Wind, humidity, and the cold can all take a toll on your skin and changing up your sunscreen's thickness can help. Or add a thicker moisturizer underneath your sunscreen.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure to put on 1/4 teaspoon of sunscreen to your face and 1/4 teaspoon to your neck everyday.
• Sunscreens are usually more protective than facial moisturizers with SPF contained in it.
• Oily acne prone skin can and should use sunscreen, you just have to find the right one.
• Make sure your sunscreen is at least SPF15.
• Apply makeup 20 minutes after you apply sunscreen, so it can fully soak in with all its effectiveness.
• Always wear sunscreen rain or shine throughout the whole year.
• Makeup with SPF is NOT enough, you would have to smear a 1/4 teaspoon of goop on your face/neck and it would not be pretty nor protective enough.
• Protect your face and neck with sunscreen even when just running errands, incidental sun exposure adds up!

Resources

• List of High UVA protective Sunscreens
• Picking out the Right Sunscreen - ingredients

[Delaplane]

on 4/17/2009 Great advice on protecting skin from sunlight in winter.

[Kilogramm]

on 12/15/2008 This is great, thanks for this!

[Butterfli]

on 12/9/2008 Good information. Thanks.

[AllFYB]

on 12/9/2008 Thanks for the list of things to check. I just usually get the one that smells good LOL

[sunshine11219]

on 12/9/2008 good tips