In an effort to get journalists talking to readers about suncare, Aveeno and Neutrogena hosted a lunch at White at the Hilton with talks from Dermatologists and scientists about the dangers of the sun and what we can do to protect our skin…
In an effort to get journalists talking to readers about suncare, Aveeno and Neutrogena hosted a lunch at White at the Hilton with talks from Dermatologists and scientists about the dangers of the sun and what we can do to protect our skin.
Interestingly, Kiwis only use one bottle of sunscreen between four people each year. Sharing’s good, but that is ridiculous. We should be using a golfball amount each time to cover our body, and we are only using 41ml of sunscreen for the whole summer.
Dr Neil Mitchell of Auckland University Environmental Science Unit told us that NZ has 50% more UV than the Northern Hemisphere due to our proximity to Antartica and our clean blue skies. The Ozone layer has hit its lowest point and is on the rise again, but will take until 2060 to regain 1980’s levels, so we have a few decades left to be cautious in protection.
Snow, sand, and water all reflect UV and clouds re-reflect it, so the worst place is skiing as you’re higher in altitude as well.
Pictured left: Meleane Bourke and Francesca Marsic of Beautiful You and Melissa Gardi of NZ Weddings.
Below: Tracy Davis of Little Treasures, Samantha Brown of Good Health Mag, Sarah Manolas of Cleo and Amy Houlihan of Woman’s Day.
Trudi Brewer and Fiona Hawtin of ACP with Samatha Brown of Good Health Mag.
Tee Twyford of NZGirl and Megan Robinson of Thread.co.nz
Dr Liz Baird of Remuera Dermatologists spoke on skin cancer. 16,000 are diagnosed p.a. in NZ with various types of cancers excluding skin cancers, and a massive 67,000 are diagnosed with skin cancer with 370 deaths p.a.
2,000 cases are melanoma and it represents a $33million p.a. cost to NZ, about $10 per person. Rates are not levelling off despite the mesage slowly getting through, due to historic damage done in past years. It will take 20 years for rates to drop off.
There is a counter-argument about exposing skin to get Vitamin D, but Dr Baird says you can take it orally and get enough for a day’s requirements in about 5 minutes with your clothes all on, so it is not worth the risk of sun baking.
Lifestyle changes are better i.e. wear a hat and shirt, do sports in the early morning and late afternoon not at midday, dress children in rash shirts with sunscreen on hands and faces, and don’t let babies go in the sun.
Dr Curtis Cole of Johnson & Johnson spoke about their new technologies, especially Helioplex, which can make effective sunscreens as high as SPF100 without loading them with chemicals. Why do SPFs need to be so high? Because people don’t apply enough- only using 1/3 to 1/2 of what they should use- so it compensates for this.
Aveeno has released a sunscreen with soy with active photobarrier complex. Soy is an antioxidant and it blocks pigmentation and is favoured especially by Asian people seeking to keep a white complexion. The Baby Aveeno sunscreen has colloidal oatmeal too for moisturisation instead of soy, and can be used by any age group wanting moisturisation.
There’s been talk lately of mineral filters in sunscreen. How do these differ from chemical filters?
Some people with sensitive skin react to chemical filters. Neutrogena developed a new sunscreen called "Pure Screen" which has mineral-based filters instead. It is a physical sunscreen which sits on the skin’s surface, and is very gentle and mind. Coming soon is a product which can be applied directly to wet skin which doesn’t go cloudy and milky like other sprays, called Neutrogena WET Skin Spray.
Below: The Johnson & Johnson team and visiting speakers at White.
The new products from Aveeno and Neutrogena.
The key messages I took away were
it’s important to use a broad spectrum sunscreen that has both UVA and UVB protection
it’s vital to use enough quantiy of sunscreen
the higher SPF the better.
By Megan Robinson, 3 October 2010.
Leave a Reply