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“Wearing a sunscreen” is among the most basic health advice you can get – just up there with fruits and vegetables. But standard sunscreen – the type that comes out of the white or cream of color bottle and disappears in the skin – leaves aside an important advantage, explains Dr. Jenna Lester, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of California in San Francisco.
Over the past decade, there have been more research on hyperpigmentation – which can appear as stains or dark spots – and melasma, a condition where brown or bluish patches develop on the skin. These problems occur much more frequently for darker people.
These conditions are not only caused by an ultraviolet influence, explains Dr. Adam Friedman, professor and president of dermatology at George Washington University. The evidence shows that the radiation of visible light, which penetrates the skin more deeply than UV rays, can contribute to hyperpigmentation and melasma. Visible light has been shown to trigger erythema, or redness of the skin, in lighter skin.
Most sunscreen products do not offer visible light radiation protection.
“In dermatology, of course, we have the accent put on skin cancer,” says Lester “and I think that this concentration sometimes tends to remove people from the discussion because it is something less likely to happen in people of color,” she said.
Hyperpigmentation and melasma do not represent a danger to health, but “we cannot underestimate the psychosocial emotional impact”, explains Friedman.
But tinted sunscreens, which have a pigment to match a range of skin tones, block visible light radiation.
A Research examination On a tinted sunscreen published earlier this summer in the newspaper Photodermatology, Photoimmunology and Photomedicine have found that tinted sunscreens surpass non -tinted products by protecting from damage against visible light.
A US dermatologists Survey found that more than 90% of service providers said they advised their patients on the protection of visible light, only about 10% made recommendations based on evidence.
Researchers, who included Dr. Friedman, wish to see more research and standardized recommendations for visible light protection. And more choice of products: some providers have said that the absence of an appropriate range of colors has bothered their patients using a tinted sunscreen.
Understand hyperpigmentation and melasma
Dark spots do not only appear on the skin from nowhere. The process often starts with an inflammatory skin condition, most often acne or with a bite or a scratch. Friedman says that the inflammatory response of the body – intended to cure the wound – can also damage pigment cells in the skin, known as melanocytes.
These pigment cells are available in packets called melanosomes. In darker skin, known as Friedman, the packages are larger and more distributed and darker skin tones can be more subject to hyperpigmentation.
Aside from this inflammatory process linked to visible light radiation, there are other ways whose spots can appear on the skin. For example, age spots also called solar lento develop from sun exposure over time and would be the result of ultraviolet radiation. Another benign skin growth called Seborrheic keratosis is not at all connected to light radiation. Certain definitions of hyperpigmentation include these conditions and other are not associated with visible lightAnd science on visible light radiation is always evolving.
Lighter skin people are not immune to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation but “If you are someone with darker skin and you have acne and you are in the sun, it’s a recipe for more durable and more perceptible dark spots,” said Friedman.
Dermatologists know less about melasma, which is an active inflammatory condition rather than a brand left behind. The hormones play a role and the sun exposure aggravates the condition, says Friedman.
Do you want visible light protection? Here is what to look for on a label
The components listed as ingredients active on a bottle of sunscreen or solar protective hydrating are those that protect the skin from UVA and UVB radiation. So, to find out if a product also blocks the light radiation visible, you need to look further on the label.
The number one ingredient to be sought with regard to the protection of visible light is the compound chemical oxide, Lester and Friedman agree. The iron oxide gives a sunscreen tinged with its color, and it is also commonly used to lend a shade of skin-tone to the corrector and the foundation.
“Any tinted mineral sunscreen will probably filter visible light,” explains Friedman.
How much iron oxide is sufficient? It’s difficult. “The problem is that we do not really know what concentration is there because it is still not listed as an active ingredient. For most brands of sunscreen, it owns what is in there, so they will not even tell you if you ask them,” said Lester.
She says that around 3% iron oxide probably offers the best protection. And she says that it is prudent to assume that solar screens which are white or broken white in color do not include sufficiently high levels of the compound to note. To a certain extent, you can the global – we are talking about visible light after all.
Friedman says that tinted titanium dioxide is also doing a good job of diffusion of visible light. (Titanium dioxide is also available in a “transparent” version). Be careful, says Friedman, for solar screens sold as “ultra-shared or ultrafine”. These products contain nanoparticles of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which block UV radiation but are too tiny to disperse visible light.
There is evidence that antioxidants and vitamin C are also useful to protect against visible light, says Lester.
But will that correspond to my skin?
The tinted solar screens were initially designed so as not to confer visible light protection but to mix with your complexion or serve as makeup which serves as sun protection. They can better correspond to darker skin tones, explains Friedman.
“I tend to hear people talk about ghostly or ashtise look for mineral -based sunscreen, like zinc, titanium,” says Lester. “Tinted solar screens containing iron oxide tend to reduce this problem a little, but they certainly do not cover the diversity of dark skin tones that exist in the world,” she said.
Lester underlines that, similar to dressings, tinted sunscreen products that correspond to darker skin have become available just in recent years. “I would like companies to develop an even more deeply tinted sunscreen,” she said.
Lester notes that if you do not find a sunscreen tinted in a shade you like, you can search for a foundation containing iron oxide and first apply an unspoiled sunscreen, then superimpose the foundation, which should offer some protection against visible light.
Dr. Friedman says that everything considered, he encourages patients to wear a tinted sunscreen to prevent hyperpigmentation, even if they do not find perfect color correspondence.
“Given what point the dark points are deactivated, I would say that each patient who has it, it is a different state of mind compared to the reason why you would use it in relation to no,” he said.
Andrea Muraskin is a health and science journalist based in Boston. She writes the NPR Health Newsletter.
