Seriously, am I meant to be wearing suntan lotion every day?

[AutumnalEquinox]

It seems that I am doing something really wrong here, because I am not wearing SPF every day. I've tried to find one that is light, and in the past I have had face creams and foundations with SPF 15 in them, but I just can't seem to tolerate getting up in the morning and slapping on sun tan lotion under my makeup before I go out in the winter. It would break me out in greasy spots.

Am I doomed? I am wearing toner, serum, and moisturiser, but not putting a layer of SPF on. I know it is about UV rays I can't see, but I don't have many wrinkles or sun damage as I've had my skin analysed tested.

You present one study that doesn't actually prove anything if just didn't find proof it did prevent illnesses there are also studies that suggest that supplementation of Vitamin D does reduce the risk of certain illnesses. Tanning your skin does increase your risk for skin cancer and tanning i.e. deepening the shade of your skin isn't necessary to produce enough vitamin D for the body's needs. I was just making this clear for other posters.

If you want to tan your skin with all the associated risks of cancer and accelerated skin ageing that is up to you.

I take vitamin D year round, even in summer I'm deficient
Started at a level of 9 in 2020 and think I'm up to 66 now. That's with a high dose course and then 4000IU daily. Still trying to get it above 100

According to the calculator I linked to, I can still get a decent amount up to late October, and again starting February. So if I build up levels in the summer this can see me through. But the benefits of sunshine appear to go beyond vitamin d anyway, as discussed in the article.

OP I love Ultrasun SPF 30 and find it really sinks in and doesn't pill under foundation etc. The SPF 50 version if I'm on holiday somewhere really hot.

Oh and for Vit D (I am blue skinned and have to be super careful in the sun) I recommend the BetterYou DLux 3000 +K2 spray - it doubled my levels in a few months.

I'm in my 50s and have 2 friends dealing with melanoma, and have also seen how seriously disfiguring the surgery to remove non-melanoma lesions can be within my own family.

Here is another article that I think is interesting (although more speculative). It suggests that the light itself - and specifically infrared light - is a key part of what makes sunshine healthy.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568163720302245?casa_token=8ZUTPmBsp4oAAAAA:akj6Fp2VhskQgLs9C-w8QhTMzh4DmGSe_INk5-WTzm-8kDe__KdK2A3BtyF82Mqalh91EQ1DmWGC

If correct then sitting watching a sunset is probably particularly good for you (as well and enjoyable and free). Which is nice.

It wasn’t me that linked to that research. Maybe read the thread properly.

I spend a lot of time outside I can’t help pick up a bit of colour. Far healthier than avoiding the sun completely.

"Far healthier than avoiding the sun completely."

@Delatron Not true.

Yes I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m sure if your levels are topped up that will get you through the winter. I do still sit out in the winter sun and spend lots of time outside but I will wear SPF on my face. Personally I don’t think I’ll get that much vitamin D from exposing my face in winter but I will still get the ageing UVA rays. It’s a personal preference.

Complete avoidance of the sun is not healthy.

Posters have recommended some really expensive SPF50 face creams upthread. Is it really necessary to spend upwards of £90 for a pot of face cream?

I m using the Nivea one which I only ever but when it is on special offer, so it works out at about £15 a bottle.

Nope. I use a variety of fairly cheap ones, I think it's more important to be able to use the full recommended amount rather than just a dab because it's £££
A lot of moisturisers with spf you won't get the recommended spf because people don't apply enough
I do 3 finger lengths for my face

I have a lot of expensive 'tweakments'. The doctor that I see always reminds me that the money I'm spending on her procedures will be completely wasted if I don't use SPF 50 every single day.

I don't think anyone's arguing that vitamin D/sunlight isn't important. But this is just one paper. There are others that have failed to find convincing clinical effects from vitamin D deficiency in the general population. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

One question, if vitamin D deficiency is as dangerous as this paper suggests, is why we are not seeing very high levels of disease in women who wear the hijab/modest clothing and live in northern Europe. We know they are at high risk of vitamin D deficiency but in general, they don't appear to have any higher levels of disease than other people of the same ethnicity who do expose themselves to sunlight. How is that possible, if vitamin D deficiency is so dangerous?

You hate men don't you?

It really isn't just one paper. The paper I linked to summarizes multiple studies, including two meta-analyses (studies of all the relevant data to date). This is the best evidence to date and they estimate massive effects of sun deficiency on mortality (around 10% of deaths).

I don't know of any studies on life expectancy and modest dress specifically. Comparing veiled and non-veiled women in general wouldn't be very informative about sun exposure, because the two groups may differ on many other relevant traits (wealth, education, smoking, drinking...). I do know however that modest dress is often cited as a potential explanation for the prevalence of rickets in certain countries. As it happens, rickets is on the increase in the UK too.

And just to be really clear, it's not (just) vitamin d deficiency that is a worry. It's deficiency of sunlight.

The paper was sponsored by the Sunshine Health Foundation who sound like a bunch of flat Earthers. The paper is not a systemic review of evidence: it's just cherry-picking bits of studies that might appear to support their views.

It just makes no sense, epidemiologically, to suggest that lack of sunshine exposure is causing vast numbers of excess deaths, if you can't show that people in non-sunny countries are at higher risk.

If your argument were true, we should see lots more of all the diseases cited in the paper in northern Europe, and low incidences in the lovely sunny Med.

So let's take a look at some of the diseases your paper mentions:

Colorectal cancer: some of the highest incidence is in Portugal and Greece.

Cardiovascular disease: no discernible pattern in terms of sun exposure. Prevalence is low in Portugal and Greece but also Iceland. Italy has one of the highest rates in the EU (Figure 31).

Asthma: Finland has a high prevalence but so have France and Malta. Greece has a low prevalence but so has Latvia.

Type 1 diabetes: highest incidences in Europe re UK and Germany but we are way below the not-noticeably-snowy pack leaders, India and Brazil (and the US).

Now are all those disease multi-factorial? Yes. But you cannot seriously expect us to believe that lack of sunlight causes millions of excess deaths and diseases when sunny countries have as many of them as non-sunny countries.

I wear SPF every day in a form of a tinted moisturizer and then throughout a day I would just put a bit of SPF powder on my face. Did you try SPF powders OP?

Btw I have oily skin too OP and this is the tinted moisturizer with SPF that I use, it won't make your skin greasy at all, an absolute lifesaver even in tropics. I should say I use a different colour though so can't really comment on how this one will look on the skin.
As for SPF powder, I use a Japanese one (couldn't find the link), but there are lots of options out there. Very suitable for oily skin: The 10 Best Powder Sunscreens of 2023 (byrdie.com)

My skin can’t take a lot of product, so I wear sunscreen instead of serum / moisturiser.

Boots does quite a nice face one.

@DrBricolage to get the required vitamin D one only needs to have a very short amount of time in the sun. Here is one study...

A study done in Valencia, Spain, measured the amount of sunlight necessary to produce a sufficient amount of vitamin D in those with lighter skin. (Valencia is about the same latitude as Kansas City, Missouri.) The researchers took into account the amount of clothing and the season of the year. In spring and summer, 25 percent of the body (the hands, face, neck and arms) is exposed to the sun, and in these seasons, about 8 to 10 minutes of sun exposure at noon produces the recommended amount of vitamin D.
Most other reports I have read suggest 15 mins on the equivalent of your lower arms is sufficient. In winter it takes longer as we are covered and the sun is weaker.

Wearing spf won't realistically prevent people getting enough vitamin D unless they never go outside or wear shrouds in which case the spf is the least of the barriers to getting vitamin d

I supplement my vitamin d. I'd rather protect my skin and get vitamin d

I'd be staggered if twenty eight year olds were contracting melanoma because they were walking the dog in December in the UK without sunscreen. Holidays in Morocco and sun beds are a far far more likely culprit.

How are you defining "sufficient" though? A lot of these studies define it as the amount necessary to prevent rickets, which we know, but nobody really knows the optimum Vitamin D levels to minimise the risk of bowel, breast and prostate cancer. Or even whether the beneficial effects of sun exposure are related to vitamin D or some other mechanism, like nitric oxide production - which helps with cardiovascular health, or whatever mechanism it is that lowers the risk of multiple sclerosis.

Also Valencia is a long way south of even the south of the UK.

Feel free to use high level spf on your face 365 days a year if minimising wrinkles and age spots is important to you. But if you're in the UK you should make sure you get a good amount of sun on your arms/legs/torso instead, without ever ever burning.

Its a balance really between the benefits of sunlight vs the damage done to skin from over exposure. This will obviously be skin type dependent. I don't avoid the sun, and never will. I like being outdoors, but have started ensuring my moisturiser has spf in.

As pp suggested this can include bb cream.

There is just no evidence that lack of sunlight causes most of those conditions. They are as common in sunny countries as colder ones.

MS - weirdly - is commoner the further you get from the equator. Guess where's a hot spot for it? Australia.

I work outside and am generally outside loads and wear SPF50 on my face 365

Other parts of my body are exposed when it’s warm enough but I still take a Vit D and Calcium supplement from October to April.

It does no harm so why not just to be sure