Sun-protecting your skin isn’t just about wearing sunscreen anymore. Healthy sun protection is about keeping the sun’s rays from ever reaching your skin and a hat is one of the most important ways to do that. Your face and neck get the most sun of all your skin, and it’s where we doctors find the most skin cancers. It’s also the most wrinkled part of anyone’s skin, and that, too, is because of sun exposure. Outwit wrinkles and skin cancer by wearing a great sun hat when you’re in the sun.

4 Essential Characteristics Of The Perfect Sun Protection Hat

1. It needs to be made of sun impenetrable material. Many hat companies are now rating a hat’s sun protection qualities and ideally you want a hat that says it has a UPF 50. A lot of good hats aren’t rated, however, and you can always test their sun permeability with my Detecto Ring.
2. It must have a full circumference brim measuring 3 to 5 inches. The brim needs to be firm enough that it doesn’t fold and buckle in the wind, leaving you exposed. A billed hat like a visor or baseball hat is never good enough; it’s job security for me because a billed hat dosn’t protect the sides of your face, your ears and your neck. Never depend on billed hats for sun protection when your outdoors.
3. The hat needs to cover your entire scalp with sun impenetrable material. This means no visors and no hats with mesh tops. Trust me, you don’t want skin cancer on your scalp and it’s all too common. I can’t tell you how many cancers I find on the scalp of women who have a good head of hair. Remember, your part line is in the sun whenever you are unless you’re wearing a hat. Men with thinning hair need to wear a hat to protect their scalp skin long before they have a bald spot. If they do, then, when they’re inevitably balder, they’ll have lovely, spot-free scalp skin instead of a scalp covered by liver spots, white marks and scars from skin cancer and pre-cancerous lesions treatments.
4. A good sun hat needs to stay on your head. This means it needs to fit well. Some hats have adjustable brims so you get the perfect sizing for your head. Also, depending on your activities, you may need a chin strap to keep it from blowing off.

If you’re new to full brim hats, keep trying new ones until you find what works for you. When I first started wearing full brim hats, it took me a while before I found ones that were comfortable to wear, worked for my activities and that looked good on me. I went through a lot of duds before I figured out what I liked. Now I have a great hat for every outdoor activity. I even keep one in my car for running errands.

I started selling hats in my office because patients were having trouble finding the same good looking and practical hats that I use. The hats have been a real hit so I’ve added a few to my web site. I want every body to wear hats for sun protection. I’ve added a little incentive by giving a 10% discount when you buy a hat and my Sun Protection Kit. The combination gives you everything you need for smart, dermatologist-approved sun protection — and you get a good deal too.

If you found this helpful, you may also want to read:

Stop The Summer Darkening Of Your Age Spots

6 Tricks For Sun Protecting Your Skin In Really Hot Weather

Skip The Tan And Eat Your Veggies For Beautiful Skin Color

Each season has its special impact on your skin — both good and bad. Summer’s no different. While you’re outdoors and active in the heat and sun, your skin is exposed to some pretty harsh conditions. Keep it healthy and looking great with some simple changes in your skin care.

Solutions for the biggest summer skin problems that I see in my dermatology practice:

Thick, rough and cracked feet: Walking barefoot or in sandals leaves feet thick, rough and cracked. Keep them soft with exfoliation. My ’step by step’ instructions to keep your feet soft and attractive this summer: Dermatologist’s 3 Simple Steps For Sandal Ready Feet By Spring

Athlete’s foot: sweaty athletic shoes and public showers breed fungus. If your feet are scaly, itchy and cracked you may well have picked up this highly contagious problem. Get rid of the fungus before it gets worse by following my instructions: Dermatologist’s Tips For Athlete’s Foot Fungus Treatment.

Chapped and sunburned lips: Sun and wind chap and burn lips fast. You need good sun protection when you’re outdoors, and mineral sunscreen products designed specifically for the lips, such as Lip Cotz, are the best. Some colored lipsticks can also give your lips good sun protection.

For moist, healthy lips you also need constant applications of a really good lip balm like Ceralip or pure shea butter. I recommend avoiding lip balms with a lot of medicated or herbal ingredients because I see so many people whose severely chapped lips are actually due to allergic reactions to these ingredients. I recommend using just the hydrating ointment base in lip balms and skipping all the dicey ‘extras.’

Gardener’s Hands: chapped, rough and cracked hands are a part of summer for you if you’re a gardener (like me). Good hand care is essential to keeping your hands looking even remotely presentable outside of the garden. The same hand care that I outlined in the winter for all the folks with chapped hands from hand sanitizers will fix your gardener-worn hands too.

“Embarrassing” arms and legs!: I can’t tell you how many people are embarrassed to show off their arms and legs; like it or not, summer fashions show more skin. After about our mid-twenties, just about everybody has to put a little work into keeping their arm and leg skin looking good. My recommendations:

At a minimum, moisturizing will help control the dry, flaky scale and give your skin an attractive, dewy look.

Adding sun protection plus alpha hydroxy acid hydration combined with physical exfoliation keeps the age spots from darkening. I give you instructions in my post: Stop The Summer Darkening of Your Age Spots.

On top of that, if you add a sunless tanner, you’ll have evenly bronzed, dewy hydrated skin with a buffed and polished glow! I tell you how in: Use Self Tanners Like A Pro.

Stressed facial skin: In the summer, facial skin care is all about survival; summer sun and environmental exposure will cause permanent damage to your facial skin unless you protect it every day. Sunscreen and antioxidant skin care products are essential for anyone seriously concerned about facial wrinkles and age spots (not to mention skin cancer). The best sunscreens are the mineral-based products. The best antioxidant protection comes from products with high concentrations of vitamin C and products that combine green tea and caffeine. Every day there are new ‘miracle’ antioxidants and sunscreens hitting the skin care market, but in my opinion, the mineral sunscreens and vitamin C and green tea/caffeine antioxidant products have the best scientific evidence proving their benefits; they’re what I personally use and recommend for my patients.

With good skin care you can have soft, healthy and fabulous-looking skin all summer long.

If you found this information helpful, you may also want to read:

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Anti Aging Skin Care

5 Steps For Smart Sun Protection

Photo: Thanks and gratitude to Dystopian

I love being creative and fashionable with sun protective clothing and hats and I’m always looking for new ideas.

Every UV ray that missed its direct hit on your skin is a good thing. Think of UV rays as little missiles; use shade, awnings, umbrellas, hats, sunglasses, clothing and what ever else you can think of to cut down on the direct UV hits to your skin. Apply sunscreen to the skin you can’t, or won’t, cover. I prefer the mineral sunscreens (with micro-sized zinc oxide in 5% or higher concentration) that coat your skin with a shield of little particles to deflect, instead of absorb, the UV rays. The Sun Protection category of my blog is filled with dermatologically sound, scientific and practical sun protection information.

These beautiful masterpieces capture bygone fashions that would have provided good sun protection and kept these people’s skin looking young and fabulous. Only in the last century has it been trendy to tan — and we’re learning our lesson quickly. Sun protection inspiration from history (minus the corsets):

I’d love to know what creative sun protection ideas have you found helpful. Please add them as comments or send them to me using the ‘Contact Dr. Bailey’ form in the top left margin of my blog page.

For More on Sun Protection And Skin Care:

How To Apply Sunscreen and Have Fabulous Skin Forever

Are Your Summer Clothes Good Enough To Be Sun Protective Clothing?

Skip The Tan And Eat Your Veggies For Beautiful Skin Color

Stop The Summer Darkening Of Your Age Spots

Photos: Freeparking Nrico

Age spots on the skin really darken up from summer sun exposure. They tan better than normal skin and really stand out, even after the briefest sun exposure. There are three things I tell my patients to do to help keep their age spots from getting darker during the summer. People who do all three get the best results.

3 Easy Steps You Can Take to Help Prevent Darkening of Age Spots:

1. Keep the sun off of your skin
2. Exfoliate regularly
   
3. Use skin lightening products to ‘turn down’ your skin’s ability to tan

1. How to best keep the sun off your skin to prevent age spot darkening:

The best way to keep the sun off of your age spots is by covering them with clothing. For areas of your skin that you can’t cover (eg. your face), wear a sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher that contains 5% or more micro zinc oxide. I give extensive recommendations on sun protection in some of my recent posts:

Are Your Summer Clothes Good Enough To Be Sun Protective Clothing

How To Apply Sunscreen & Have Healthy, Fabulous Skin Forever

2. Exfoliation to lighten age spots:

Exfoliating lightens your age spots because the dead skin cell layers above them are extra thick and the brown color is carried up through every layer. Because of this, age spots are sort of like little speed bumps and regular exfoliation of the dead skin really lightens up the dark color because they sit slightly higher than the rest of the skin. The best way to do this is with my Anti Aging Body Skin Care Kit that includes both physical exfoliation and strong AHA glycolic acid exfoliation. Over the years, I’ve had many thousands of my patients using this kit and it works beautifully to lighten age spots. I’ve used it myself for at least 10 years and have watched my age spots actually go away just because I’m using these products; I created the kit for my 40th birthday when I got my first age spot on my arm — it went away in a few months after using my new kit, which was a great ‘happy birthday to me’ !

3. Using skin pigment lighteners to fade age spots:

I also have my patients ‘turn down’ pigment production with prescription bleaching creams that contain 4% hydroquinone, and prescription Retin A (tretinoin). There are tricks to using these products and they have side effects so ask your doctor if these treatments would be appropriate for you. One of my favorite skin lightening programs is The Obagi Nu Derm System and I discussed it during a post that I wrote this winter:

Winter: Now Is The Time To Fix Your Unwanted Age Spots and Skin Pigmentation

The good news about age spots is that it really is possible to get through the summer without getting spottier and spottier. Using any one of these steps to prevent age spot darkening will help, and doing all three is even more effective. You might even see them get lighter than they are in the winter!

A final note on age spots:

Remember that not every brown spot is an age spot. Melanoma, a deadly cancer, can often start looking like one of your age spots. If you have age spots, you’ve probably also had a lot of sun exposure in your life and would be well served by getting an annual skin exam by your dermatologist. Early detection of skin cancer really does save lives, I see it every day.

If You Found This Information Helpful, You May Also Want To Read:

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Anti Aging Skin Care

Choosing The Right Make Up For Post Menopausal Skin

Use Self Tanners Like A Pro

Skip The Tan And Eat Your Veggies For Beautiful Skin Color

Photo Mik Hartwell Flickr

The concept of sun protecting skin isn’t new, and sunscreen isn’t the only way to sun protect.  Across the globe, and across history people have been taking measures to avoid excessive sun exposure. The classic example is the parasol and white gloves of western Victorian women.  Traditional Arab clothing for men still  includes a scarf like head covering and long sleeved one piece garment, both designed for breezy sun protection.  And remember, cowboys wore wide brim hats and long sleeved shirts, and today’s agricultural field workers wear similar hats and shirts.

Improvise! Use what you have and what’s functional for your activities.

A sun umbrella, wide brim hats, breezy long sleeved shirts, long dresses, pants, shawls – they all work.

Wear swim pants and shirts over your bathing suit – they’re not hot when you’re in the water.

Sit under a beach umbrella, in the shade of a tree or patio awning - it helps.

You’ll be cooler and more comfortable.  Hot sun beating down on exposed skin it HOT! Cover up, create shade, minimize direct sun exposure and sunscreen what’s little is left uncovered by clothing.

Every little bit of sun you keep off your skin means fewer wrinkles, age spots and even skin cancers-all good reasons to improvise.

More from Dr. Bailey on sun protection:

5 Steps For Smart Sun Protection

Are Your Summer Clothes Good Enough To Be Sun Protective Clothing?

How To Pick The Best Sunscreen

6 Tricks For Sun Protecting Your Skin In Really Hot Weather

Photo Attribution: