A tale of two sunburns: sunblock is for everyone

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/25/a-tale-of-two-sunburns-sunblock-is-for-everyone

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Lanre Bakare: My melanin production blows minds

My tanning ability is the closest thing I’ll ever have to a superpower: something inherent, that I have little control over, which brings out envy and apprehension in others.

Honestly, being mixed race and able to produce melanin at a fast rate blows minds. Growing up in England, a few things were guaranteed to happen every single summer. It would rain a lot ... and people would ask me whether or not I needed to wear sun tan lotion. It was like some irrepressible itch people had to scratch; Larry David even skewered the urge on The Surrogate episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, when he asks a mixed-race nurse the same question. The answer is, obviously, yes.

But I didn’t always think that I did need sunblock. I used to think I was a tanning Invincible: there was no way I could ever suffer the hideous sunburns about which my white friends complained. Until I did.

After arriving in Brazil for carnival in 2006, I went sunbathing on Ipanema without any protection – at the same time of Stephen Merchant, although that has no bearing on this story so feel free to ignore that fact – from midday until around four. The timing couldn’t have been more English or more stupid (there’s even a song about it). The next morning I woke up with burns over most of my body, and my chest looked as if I’d been in the octagon with Ronda Rousey. It was a wakeup call that I needed and the week or so I spent getting over it has informed my decisions ever since.

Now I go for a low-factor lotion to ensure I tan quickly, but then reduce my exposure and avoid midday sunbathing at all costs. That way I get brown quickly, but don’t run the risk of destroying my skin. I generally go really brown within 48 hours of being on holiday (if it’s sunny, of course) and, as the vacation goes on, I’ll reduce the amount of time I’m in the sun. So far it’s worked well. I get rid of my winter skin, which often looks as if I’m getting over some horrible illness, and get to bask in about two weeks of glowing “super brown” skin before it gradually abates. It’s not exactly a superpower, but it’s one thing I don’t have to worry about over Memorial Day weekend.

Megan Carpentier: I hoard SPF 70 like liquid gold

I’m white even by the standards of white people: not only did I earn the nickname Caspar growing up (long before I went goth, thanks for asking), but in the summer of 1998, which I spent studying in Munich, three random Germans stopped me on the streets over July and August to ask if I was feeling okay because I was so pale.

I entirely lack the ability to tan and I don’t even get freckled in the sun – and forget about that mythology that fair-skinned folks can get one mild sunburn that will fade into a light base tan. “Mild” doesn’t describe my sunburns: they’re usually cumulative, so that each subsequent exposure to mere minutes of sunlight exacerbates the redness and the pain (and eventually causes blisters) until, lobster-colored, warm to the touch and starting to peel, I retreat to dark rooms. Only then can I return to my normal deathly paleness – but it never results in anything resembling a tan.

I have a rolling tally in my head of my worst sunburns, so that I can recount them to dermatologists inspecting my skin for the inevitable cancers: there’s the one I got white water rafting at age 15, which resulted in a completely blistered, weeping nose the next day; the one that I got in the part of my hair after a long trip in my then-boyfriends convertible at age 20, which blistered up and left me unable to wash or even brush my hair for several days; the humiliating one I got in the security line to cover President Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention, which I was forced to explain to multiple amused reporters in the press box; the list goes on. In all of them, I was wearing some sort of solar protection, even if it was just a moisturizer with SPF (which I’ve used since I was 13); but a little doesn’t go nearly far enough with me.

I have read all those pieces about how any SPF over 50 is just a gimmick, and I call bullshit. The second that Neutrogena came out with a non-comedogenic SPF 70, I practically bought stock: I carry it in my purse, I buy it whenever I see it on sale, I hoard it like it’s liquid gold. Anything with SPF 30 or less and I might as well just slather myself in butter and lie on black asphalt; SPF 50 provides a modicum of protection but it’s like playing roulette if I’m in direct sunlight for more than 45 minutes – definitely put your money on red.

Memorial Day, as the semi-official start of summer, has always meant the start of several months of avoiding the outdoors while everyone else wants to be outside and explaining to some nosy Nancy why it is that I’m just so pale. I’m so white because I spend $10 for 3 ounces of paleness-guaranteeing cream over and over again, hoping to avoid the public humiliation of being steak-colored on the outside. I’m just trying to stay as rare as the steak I prefer to eat.