I am very, very fair skinned; I don’t really ever tan. Instead, I burn almost instantaneously, which means that I have resolved myself to a lifetime of looking like an extra from the “Twilight” saga. My goal every summer is to go to the pool as often as possible and never have tan lines.
With the right sunscreen, a big hat and a chair in the shade, that is totally doable, by the way.
Unfortunately, I’ve not always been quite so sun smart; as a child, I was burned more times than I can count. In particular, I remember entire summers where my nose would burn and peel, layer after layer of skin flaking off and turning pink and flaking off. Nobody thought anything of it; that’s just what happened when you played tennis and rode your bike and swam and spent every waking minute of every day outdoors.
As an adult, I have become a hard-core sunscreen advocate. I’ve been wearing sunscreen daily for nearly 25 years now, winter and summer, rain or shine. And it has paid off — recently, the aesthetician who tends to my eyelashes and eyebrows asked if I’d had Botox. No, I said, and she marveled at how few wrinkles I have.
Sunscreen FTW!
