To wonder about sunburnt children before suncream was popularised?

[Leah5678]

Apparently wasn't popularised until the 70s. With children playing outside practically every day back in the days before television was invented how did they not burn? Did they just get used to it?
Apologies if this is an extremely stupid question just something I've been wondering about with the last few days of decent weather

@PippEmma Wonderfully marinated, though. A few mixed herbs in the rub and you would have been perfect!

We burned during the first day of hot sun, every summer. Calamine lotion was applied afterwards, to little effect. It hurt so we couldn't sleep. Then we peeled; and then sort of hardened off. Ended up lovely and brown as we were outside all the time, and had dark hair and easy skin. It was all considered normal.
The memory gave me the horrors when I had children. I slather factor 50 on at the beginning of the season, and go into shade in the middle of the day, much as I love the sun.

Wow, I don’t realising getting sun burnt was literal. As in skin actually peeling off! New thing learnt today.

Oh yes, sun burns are just like a burn from a fire and there are different degrees of severity. A bad sunburn will be bright red, skin swollen and inflamed, it can even blister, and then as it heals, the dead skin on top peels off. You can burn on a cloudy day too.

Oh, that is so sad. The ones on the scalp often go undetected.

I had two melanoma cancers on my scalp. One was a raised mole on the top of my head that went bad and when I went in complaining how it was itching, hurting, and bleeding they found an even larger flat melanoma on the side of my head! I didn’t even know the larger one existed. Zero symptoms.

I was 26 and it was in the early 90s. Had the full cancer treatment and then plastic surgery so I didn’t have huge bald spots.

I feel very lucky to have survived.
Your poor SIL.

Yeah, my brother and I were in the boot of the hatchback estate car because the three youngest were in the back seat. Seatbelts were optional then too.

It is an ignorant post. Ironically the thought then was that the big danger to kids minds & health was screens. The telly screen that is, or the box what makes you stupid. Our parents had grown up without televisions and didn’t like how it made children fat, lazy and defiant. Filling our heads with dangerous nonsense. So the conscientious parent would limit screen time to one after school show like Blue Peter and send their kids outside to play the rest of the time.

And look, we have come full circle in some ways!

YABVU and this thread is very irresponsible to promote that a lack of SPF is in any way acceptable. My Gran, born in 1923 and half Italian was one who used to sun worship while coated in oil and guess what? She ended up with skin cancer. I know at least half a dozen people, including myself, who've had pre-cancerous moles removed in 40's or younger. Imagine we hadn't spotted the signs that they were potentially problematic. Another 20 years and we could all be dead from skin cancer. And we were all born in the 70's and 80's!

Raised in the 70/ and I was terrible at using sunscreen until my mid 20’s when I came back from a holiday and a girl from New Zealand asked me why I had allowed myself to burn so badly (I thought I looked great!). From then on I was more careful and am to this day. I like being in the sun but never go out without applying sun cream.
To be fair to my parents they did their best to put some cream on me when abroad but it was a thing to soak up the sun and suffer a bit. Really silly and I probably look older than I should now.

My mother pulled this stunt as well.

I was 12 and remember being really, really vivid red and peeling and flaking off and I couldn't lie down.

She may have mistaken me for a fucking chip that needed frying!

Stupid bitch (long story)

this thread is very irresponsible to promote that a lack of SPF is in any way acceptable

No one is saying it is acceptable today, but the reality was that it was largely acceptable fifty years ago because people did not know the dangers like they do today and high SPF suncreams simply were not available. What was available were expensive ‘tanning lotions’ marketed so you could ‘safely gradually tan’ that had max SPF of 4 or 8.

It’s not unlike how smoking was acceptable in the 40/50s because people did not know the dangers of it.

The OP is of a generation that did not live this, so is seeking to understand what it was like for many of us.

That about F15 is so so true.

I remember it was sold as high factor. I went my first foreign beach holiday with my pals around 1995. I took a F15 & a F8 totally inadequate I ended up borrowing a F30.

But also sunscreen was very expensive and you paid more for the higher factors. I think it was Asda who were first supermarket to do their own brand and have same price regardless of the factors.

Asda take on Boots
For the first time consumers will be able to purchase a range of 12, 200ml bottles of suntan creams at a uniform price of 4.99 each, regardless of factor, when the products go on sale next week. By contrast, market leader Ambre Solaire’s factor eight lotion costs 8.49 for 200ml but the factor 25 sells for 9.79. Boots Soltan costs 7.79 for factor six, but 9.39 for factor 15.
Marketing Week Extract from 1997

I have zero clue how that useless information stuck in my head that it was Asda that made the difference. And even more amazed that I found it on a very quick Google

Calamine is a zinc ore, and calamine lotion ingredients include zinc oxide, so if it had been applied before going out in the sun, would have probably worked okay. But it was used after instead.

I don't remember it being used for sunburn in our house - that doesn't mean it wasn't, just that I don't remember it. I do remember it being used to try and reduce the itching of chicken pox.

Sun didn’t seem as strong in the U.K. (ozone issues?) and overseas holidays were uncommon.

Kids outside all the time and skin seemed more tolerant and not prone to burn (except those with very fair skins who burnt from day at the beach).

It was a point of honour to peel! How big a sheet of skin could you remove all at once? Definitely not to be recommended.

Agree with this and despite this choose Factor 50 now (while factor 8 was considered high), plus wear a hat in the sun and don’t specifically sunbathe at all (but like to swim).

Sunscreen of factor 50 easier to apply since the 90s due to modern formulas.

Covering up was more of wearing a t-shirt in the pool, now there are UV protective fabrics as well.

Although a very short period (20 mins) is helpful for vitamin D, I don’t think it’s responsible for anyone to try and tan at all, given what we now know and wasn’t promoting this by answering OP.

My friend’s sister died in her 20s of skin cancer, which is obviously unusually young, but there was no effective treatment for her despite it being within the last decade.

Sunburn wasn't invented until 1982.

I was born in 1981 and we definitely used sun cream growing up. I don't think I've ever been burnt.

True there was a concern about “getting square eyes” but in reality even if you watched everything there wasn’t a constant stream of tv, max of a few hours for kids and no video in 1970s.

I don’t understand why everyone remembers no sun cream or low factor suncreams, born in the 70’s and my mum always used total sun block on us as we are fair (she is dark) it was probably equivalent to a factor 50, we never got burnt as children and she had 7 of us

Regularly burned to peeling, and have had a pre cancer removed.
Would love to have regular checks to catch anything early. Anyone got any suggestions of who does this and costing?

I was a child of the 80s and we never used suncream in the UK. The first time I used it was my first holiday abroad, as a teen - after getting badly burnt! It just wasn’t a thing in my family, but we didn’t have much money and I imagine it would have been even more expensive than it is now back then, as it wasn’t common. I certainly never used it at school or to go to the beach in the UK even though my family spent days sunbathing on the beach; I wasn’t even aware of it. I remember watching the morning programmes with my mum during the summer holidays, and tanning being a thing that everyone was aiming for. The idea that burning was ok as then you’d turn brown was a thing as others have mentioned.

My parents grew up abroad in a hot country (both born in the 60s) and were horrified by the Brits when they moved here. They had always been taught to stay inside during the middle of the day and sunglasses, hats, long sleeved/loose clothing to cover up as much of the skin as possible on hot days were a must. They couldn't believe their first summer here with people baking themselves to death in the hot sun! My siblings and I always had to do the same and we always had suncream to put on if we did need to go outside. Even now, they avoid outside as much as possible on hot days and always wear sunglasses and hats when it's sunny (even when it's not hot!). Both have gorgeous skin and are ageing incredibly well compared to peers. I'm definitely following their example!

Perhaps because your family was atypical.

We were told (1960s) not to burn but that meant staying out of the sun or covering up. I remember being made to wear a sun hat. Sun cream was reserved for foreign holidays although we may have used it at the seaside in the UK.

I seem to remember that the SPF classification was not standardised until fairly recently and companies could make up their own grading. In the 1980s I certainly remember buying sun screen graded 4. It was high protection and the 4 had nothing to do with the SPF.