But do you have the right sunscreen? The answer may surprise you because it’s a highly subjective answer that depends on several factors. Getting it wrong may not provide the protection from the sun’s ultraviolet rays and could cause skin damage. Worse, long-term misjudgment of the type of sunscreen you choose could lead you down the path to skin cancer.
The Skin Cancer Institute, a research organization dedicated to studying the disease, estimates that nearly 5 million people are treated for skin cancer each year. That’s more than the combined total of lung, breast, colon and prostate cancers. For the past three decades, more people have contracted skin cancer than all other cancers combined, and it’s estimated that 20 percent of Americans will get skin cancer during their lifetime. About 3,000 people will die in the United States this year from skin cancer.
Part of that enormous problem is that few people can determine how well a sunscreen will protect them from skin cancer, sunburn or premature aging (sometimes referred to as photoaging). Less than half of 114 research study participants in a test conducted by the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago could say which sunscreen offered the best protection. Less than half could tell you what "SPF" stands for (for the record, it’s “sun protection factor”).
It Isn’t Your Fault
Part of the problem in deciphering the information is that current sunscreen bottle labels look different than they did before 2012. That’s when the government realized that there was more to describing sun protection than limiting one particular type of ultraviolet ray.