Skin Care Advice for Summer

As much as we all like to soak up some rays when the weather is warm, it can cause serious long-term damage to skin cells.

Dr. Pamela Davis, a dermatologist with said getting a tan is "not cool" for several reasons.

Davis emphasized the importance of protecting your skin during the summer for two reasons: ultraviolet rays are dangerous because they damage the DNA in your skin cells, thereby inflaming them and causing sunburn, and also because the sun causes photoaging of the skin. When your skin cells can no longer repair themselves, skin cancer develops. Which is why, Davis noted, you never see kids with skin cancer. Because their body is young, their skin cells are good at repairing themselves.

Sunlight also destroys and alters collagen and other support structures in your skin, such as elastic fibers. So while you may think that tanning makes you look younger now—in a few years you’ll realize that you’ve actually advocated your own aging.

“Tan implies that you’re getting enough sun that your body is making enough pigment to protect you from more sun,” she said. And while sunburn doesn’t qualify as a first-degree burn, your body responds in a very similar way to repair it.

Davis recommends sunblock over sunscreen to protect yourself. While no hazards have been proven, your skin cells may absorb the usually obscure chemicals in sunscreen whereas the chemicals in sunblock, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, are too large for your skin cells to absorb. Sunblock is also more durable than sunscreen, so it doesn’t wash off as easily in the water.

However, the best type of sun prevention is clothing. The sun hits it and reflects right off of it. If you are going to use sunscreen though, SPF 15 is all that is necessary, she said.