AIBU to think that sun cream was rarely used in the 70s? Recovering from the big C.

[Serendipity12]

So, am always paranoid about sun exposure with my two DCs and with good reason - 6 years ago I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Luckily am still here but it really got me thinking back and as I was growing up, although we rarely went abroad, like all other kids I enjoyed playing out and about and I have no recollection of ever being slathered in sun cream. Do remember the calamine lotion for occasional sun burn though😬
Not meaning to be judgey of my parents but is this the experience of other similarly aged people on here? Because it was obviously a factor in me developing that disease. Just trying to get perspective, really...

You might find this article about the history of suncream interesting
www.thoughtco.com/suncreen-history-1992440

My mum did put sun cream on us in the late 70s/ early 80s- I distinctly remember Mothercare Factor 7 which was like being coated in white emulsion. However, I also remember getting badly burnt shoulders and legs several times. I don’t think sun safety was s priority- no.

No, I don't remember using sun cream in the summer in the UK (born early 70s).

I don't remember burning either. We did use sun cream if we went abroad in the 80s. I had factor 10 for very fair skins but I think they've changed the rating so that was quite high.

I burned v badly on my back and legs several times over the years and feel like it's almost inevitable that it'll come back to bite me. I'm very careful now but there's lots of skin cancers of all types in my family and my dad was diagnosed with MM last year (touch wood no reoccurance so far).

I was born in the 70s. Sun cream was used on beach days only. Somehow my parents didn't consider it necessary for playing in the garden on hot days.

I remember being so burnt I could peel sheets of skin off.

So yes , similar experience I guess. Hope you're ok.

Never had it (born in the 60s) in fact in the summer of 1976 I sunbathed using coconut oil slathered all over me. I am blonde and very fair skinned. Still didn't tan, but my freckles joined up so I looked brown

Your freckles shouldn't join up, that's sun damage. My sister lived in Italy for five years and became obsessed with oiling herself on the beach. She's had a mole removed and still insists on tanning.

Grew up in California...

I had memorable sunburns in 1972/73 but suncream was very standard everywhere by 1979. My dad had terrible sunburns in the 1940s-50s but always very creamed up by 1970.

The smell of Ambre Solaire Factor 30 is one of my strongest childhood memories - my mum slathered me (b. 1975) and my sister (b. 1976) in it. We didn't holiday abroad but we did live near a beach so most of our summers were spent with that horrible sand-on-suncream human sandpaper feeling.

Am grateful now, though - my ingrained suncream habit has kept the wrinkles at bay pretty well...

I remember going on holiday in 1983/4 ish when I was about 7 or 8 and my mum had brought factor 5 sun cream for us and we laughed our heads off saying we'd never get a tan. We wore it anyway and we didn't burn.

My mum was very vigilant with us but said that she played outside all day in the sun when she was a child with no protection (in the late 40s/50s).

She died of melanoma when she was 71 :-(

I was born on 1971, I don’t recall using sun tan lotion until my teens.

I do remember sunbathing in lemon juice & vinegar to get the ultimate tan 😱

My fil is being treated for skin cancer at the moment. He has only been abroad twice (to Canada and Ireland). He worked a lot outdoors and always had a brown head (he is bald) and arms in the summer but I doubt he has ever been actually sunburned. It's very scary and I get frustrated with my younger friends who insist on lying out in the sun at every possible opportunity.

Oh and just to add, factor 5 was considered very high protection in the early 1980s.

I'm no scientist but I was reading recently about a Danish study that showed people who'd had skin carcinomas (not melanomas) actually lived longer than average because sun exposure lowers other health risks such as cardiovascular disease. I thought it was very interesting.

Grew up in the 70s and remember getting burnt on the beach every year without fail. Yes to peeling shoulders, back and nose!

Sometimes i think i had suncream put on as we arrived at the beach because i can remember that horrible 'sand sticking to suncream' thing. But there was no second application, and pp says nothing if we weren't actually Next To The Sea

I remember suncream in the 1980s - holidays though not at home. And wearing t shirts in the pool.

I think factor 30 was the highest - and harder to get.

My mum had skin cancer in the nineties, so as a family we are very careful about the sun.

I was born in the mid-80s and still didn't have suncream on much as a child, only really if I was abroad or on a very hot day. Never more than factor 15. I'm blonde and fair.

It was normal to get a bit burned every summer, my DM is only 58 but thinks I'm obsessive with suncream (she doesn't even know that I wear F50 on my face every day in the summer) and that a 'little bit of colour' is healthy. She thinks the same about DCs too.

I remember tanning oil as a young child growing up in Sri Lanka. It was to turn you brown rather than protect your skin. This would have been late 1960s and into the 70s.

I have been very badly burned more times than I can remember and am very fair skinned.

I was born in 1975 and remember sun cream from age about 8/9. I don’t remember ever burning much, except when I was older and abroad.

I also remember sun block - very thick white cream. We had a stick too to cover moles in sunblock.

Never see sun block now - but I always wear factor 50 - sometimes drop to factor 30 in winter😇

I was born in the mid 60s and we definitely had sun cream as children , I’m not sure it was up to much though as I burnt really badly on a few occasions . Twice we had to return from holiday (Cornwall) because I was too burnt to actually move .

My DF, DB and DM have all had pre-cancerous moles removed btw. Clearly it's just a fluke that the only member of the family who wears suncream, is he only one who hasn't

There def was suncream but the factors advertised were lower for the most part - I had a Mother that had half a clue and we wore Factor 15 for the hotest parts of the day IF we were out but she made us come in generally about 11.30 till about 2. She was quite far sighted really - she didn't buy cheap meat either (beef) always from the butcher and we always made our own burgers etc

I was born soon after the war. There was no such thing as sunscreen when I was a child and absolutely no knowledge of the damage caused by sunlight. I n early 1970's I took my son to a beach holiday in Turkey. That was the first time I bought Sun cream but there was no system of rating

We had factor 2-3 in the south of France, nothing in the uk unless reeeally hot. The sun was weaker though, or did less damage?

I was born in the mid 50s and we certainly didn’t have sun screen available at all. I dint think our local chemist would have sold it until much later. I played outside all the time but don’t remember burning. We never had holidays so no sunbathing for us.

I do remember girls would try and sunbathe at school lunch breaks in the 60s and having a tan became important. I was fair skinned and have freckles so I didn’t tan even if I wanted to.

I went on holiday abroad when I was 19 for the first time and bought an oil based lotion. It wasn’t s sunscreen as we know it. I burnt. So I suspect proper sunscreen was available in the 1970s but I knew nothing about what I should do to protect my skin. Subsequent holidays I remember buying factor 6 and thinking that was the best protection I could get. There certainly wasn’t factor 30 or 50. So now hoping that sun exposure hadn’t caused problems. I never really liked sunbathing. It was the thing to do (2 weeks of sun, sea and sand) but I’ve now been very cautious for years and don’t do beach holidays anymore. It’s a relief not to. There’s more to the world then beaches!