Q. What is the difference between sunblock and sunscreen?
A. Yes, everyone needs to wear sunscreen if out in the direct sunlight for more than 15 minutes. Those with dark skin believe they are immune to the affects of the sun because they do not get sunburned. Burning is only one of the affects of the sun, just because you don't get burned doesn't mean that you may not get harmful skin cancer. In fact this group is one of the groups that is on the watch list as they normally do not wear sunscreen.
Level of SPF is not as straight forward as you may believe. In Canada, dermatologists increasingly have at their disposal a genetic test that can predetermine what risk you are to harmful damage by the sun and what level of SPF you should be wearing - the test brand name is dermaDNA. If you do not have this test available to you simply use a level of SPF 30. This should provide you the coverage that you need.
And remember the higher level of SPF does not mean the greater the protection. For example a SPF 2 will absorb 50% of UV radiation, SPF 15 absorbs 93% and an SPF of 35 absorbs 97% of UV rays. So it is not the absorbing of the UV rays that differs on the SPF levels as you see the difference from the 15 to the 35 is not proportionate, it simply means that an SPF 2 will allow us to remain in the sun until we have been exposed to twice the amount of solar energy, and SPF of 35 will let us stay in the sun until we have been exposed 35 times to the amount of solar energy. Keep one thing in mind, no matter what level of SPF you wear all sunscreen will degrade after 2 hours not matter how inactive you have been so always, always, always reapply.
Not all sunscreen ingredients are equal - read our 10 Most Common Sunscreens and see which one (s) you may want to avoid.
