I am blessed with beautiful red curls. Typical for a redhead is the white, sensitive skin. Obviously I got that too!
Generally speaking, I love who I am, but if I could change one thing, it would definitely be my skin. I would love to tan a bit faster and don’t burn that fast. I use gallons of sunscreen every summer!
Most of the time, I use one bottle of sunscreen in 2 1/2 week. I apply it two/three times a day. I always have to buy a new bottle of sunscreen on my holiday-destination. That’s always very expensive, but absolutely essential, because burning your skin is one of the worst things you can do to your skin. It can increase the risk of melanoma (type of skin cancer).
After my holiday I always have leftover sunscreen. In Holland during the spring and autumn I use SPF 20, and in a sunny foreign country SPF 30. Just to be safe. I never throw it out, that’s such a waste! A bottle easily costs €15. But I do buy a new sunscreen every year. Mostly out of habit. I got curious to the preservability of sunscreen. The manufacturer claims the sunscreen is lasts for 12 months, but does that count for the SPF too?
SPF?
SPF means Sun Protection Factor. It tells you how long you can sit in the sun without burning. Most of the time I use a sunscreen with SPF 30. At Curacao or Brasil I always use SPF 50 for my face, shoulders and breast. The tropical sun is a death-trap for a girl like me!
You have to choose the right sunscreen depending on your skintype. Don’t let it fool you. In my opinion everybody should at least use a cream with an SPF of at least 20!
On the back of every cosmetic product you can read the preservability of the product. For my sunscreen that’s 12 months. I bought this one last year in Spain, so it should be good.
According to the Dutch consumers union, you gotta throw the sunscreen out if it smells bad or when the consistency of the product isn’t good anymore. But they don’t write anything about the decreasing of the SPF.
PrettyHealthy.nl says after the use of a year: “Devide the original SPF per year by half to get an indication of the efficacy of the product”. In other words: My SPF 30 would be a SPF 15 after a year. Fair enough, I can still use it when I go to work, but not when I go to the beach or a cafe terrace.
With this knowledge, I can still use my last years sunscreen for a month or two before the SPF lowers itself to half. The bottle will probably be empty already though!
Do you use old sunscreen or do you always buy a new one each year?
XOXO
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