Summer is just around the corner, and coming quickly. We don’t know about you, but for as much as we love summer, we also can’t ignore the potential damage all that sun, heat, water and more can cause to your hair and skin. That’s why we have decided to focus this blog on some helpful tips and tricks to ensure that you can enjoy everything the summer has to offer without your hair and skin paying the price.
Protecting Your Hair
A major hassle to avoid, especially in the warmer months, is swimmer's hair. Swimmer’s hair can be caused by spending too much time in both swimming pools and the ocean, although the former is more common. The damaging particles in the water can cause hair to dry out and become discolored. There are a number of natural ways to both prevent swimmer’s hair and deal with it effectively should it occur, as well as a number of products to supplement these practices. Read all about how to prevent swimmer’s hair here.
While preventing swimmer’s hair is important, there are other ways your hair can get damaged in the summer, namely by the sun itself. While your hair doesn’t technically get sunburned, too much sun can dry out your hair, leaving it broken and frizzy. The most obvious way to prevent this is to wear a hat, but there are other, more subtle ways of protecting your hair. For starters, you can wash your hair less. The natural oils your scalp produces are surprisingly good at counteracting the dryness caused by overexposure to sunlight. Additionally, you can put your hair into a bun. While this doesn’t protect all of your hair, it does provide an added barrier between the sun and your scalp. Finally, treating your hair with leave-in products and/or a hair mask is always a good rule of thumb. We recommend our Leave-In Conditioner as a helpful tool in this case.
Protecting Your Skin
Now that we have helped you protect your hair, let's do the same for your skin shall we? Like with hair, one of the easiest ways to protect your skin is to keep it covered. Hats, sunglasses, long clothing, etc. are all really good ways of protecting your skin. However, we understand that it’s pretty unreasonable to expect anyone to wear the aforementioned items the entire summer. That leaves us with the next most important item; sunscreen. Here is a list of helpful tips when it comes to effectively using sunscreen:
- Use sunscreen even when it’s cloudy, applying at least one ounce of sunscreen 15-30 minutes before going outside
- Make sure to use a lip balm or lipstick that has a sun protection factor
- Reapply sunscreen every two hours, or every hour if you are swimming or sweating
- Limit your sun exposure between 10am and 4pm, this the stage when the sun’s rays are at their strongest
- Choose a broad spectrum sunscreen that protects against both UVA and UVB radiation
Now that you know the best practices for applying sunscreen, let us recommend what sunscreen to use. Our Original Sprout Face & Body Sunscreen is not only reef safe, but made with 10% non-nanoparticles of natural zinc, which gives broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays. The gentle formula won’t clog pores and is safe for babies, children and adults.
An Important Note About SPF
The SPF number on a sunscreen bottle represents the amount of time you can be exposed to the sun while using the sunscreen. For example, sunscreen with an SPF of 30 will allow you to stay in the sun 30 times longer than without it, meaning an SPF 30 will protect you for 5 hours (10 minutes x 30 (spf) = 300 min / 60min = 5 hrs). However, this only makes sense when the sunscreen is applied to a non porous, non absorbent surface. When applied to your skin, it will be absorbed in about 2 hours, regardless of SPF level. This means that a product with virtually any SPF above 15 is more than enough sun protection. High levels of SPF, such as SPF 85 or SPF 100, are actually no better at protecting your skin than sunscreen with a lower SPF, as both products will be absorbed into your skin in roughly the same amount of time. This is the main reason all sunscreen products, regardless of SPF level, recommend reapplying often or every two hours.