Choose Sunscreen Well, Because It's Better to Be Outside Than In

Protect Your Family From Harmful UV Rays. See our 2010 list of safe natural sunscreens.

July 16, 2008 at 5:08PM by Deirdre Dolan | comment

Badger Sunscreen Bottle It wasn’t blisteringly hot today, but after lunch with some friends the under-seven crew stripped down to play in the tiny plastic pool on our back deck. It’s the hard plastic variety, which is supposed to be a little bit better than the flexible, and I’ve been impressed by its entertainment mileage. There’s no shade until the afternoon so I was slathering up my fair-skinned girls with EWG-approved Badger sunscreen (rated number 1 out of 910 commonly available products) when my friend Julie told me about how her daughter got badly burned while wearing a coat of it lakeside in Vermont. She showed me the remains of her chest burn, which made me shudder and run for the Coppertone. My sister and both of my parents have had skin cancer and we’ve been told that it’s probably a when not an if for the rest of us, so I’m paranoid about preventing early sun damage.

Badger is a physical barrier sunscreen as opposed to a chemical sunscreen, which means it literally covers the skin with a film of zinc oxide that reflects or scatters the UV light. It’s the healthier option (no fragrances, preservatives or dyes), but probably requires more vigilance because it’s only water resistant for 40 minutes. (Chemical sunscreens absorb rays before they can do damage and require a couple of different active chemical ingredients to absorb both UVA and UVB rays.)

Covering every inch of my daughters every 40 minutes sometimes makes me want to stay inside and watch Teletubbies, but a recent article from the Children’s Environmental Health Network has found yet again that indoor air is usually worse than outdoor, and that the exposure to chemicals inside can cause asthma, allergies and illness.

So cover up and get outside. One easy shortcut are swim shirts and pants with lots of coverage from companies like iPlay.

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