I was always in the sun as a child and pretty much until I was about 21. I was laying in the sun and going into tanning beds. One because I like to be warm and two because I felt that it made my face clear up from acne. I didn’t realize what I was doing to my skin though. And I thought I looked good with a tan face, but really it was red and looking back at pictures my face did not look good. What was I thinking?!? I remember when I first met my husband and we started talking, we got on the topic of being in the sun and he’s saying to me that I better stay out of the sun or else I’m going to be all wrinkly when I get older…and it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. EEEkkkk!!! So that’s when I decided I needed to start staying out of the sun!
Now I didn’t stop completely because I just love the sun so much…but baby steps. So no more tanning beds for me and I try to stay out of the sun as much as possible. Shade! Shade! Shade!
My road to clear skin began when I went to see my skin care therapist! He got me under this special light called a woods lamp. A woods lamp is where you are able to see the deeper sun damage on your face. That is when I realized how baaaaaddddd my skin was damaged at such a young age. Then he explained to me how my skin cells were already damaged because of all the sun exposure I have had over the years. This was going to be the cost of premature aging! What!?! This was going to lead to me having wrinkly, saggy, damaged skin at a very early age.
We started the normalization process which is meant to bring my cells back to normal. This would also help prevent the risk of getting skin cancer in the future. This is why we MUST wear sunscreen every day that contains at least 5% or higher zinc oxide and start using vitamin A which is a key factor in normalizing (bringing the skin back to normal).
So wear your sunscreen everyday even if you are just going for a car ride to the grocery store in the middle of winter. The sun is still out! Or even if it is a cloudy day. The UV rays still penetrate through the clouds causing sun damage on your skin.
Yours truly,
Brittany
