All About Skin - and Skin Cancer

Today at the beauty salon the young woman rinsing out my hair commented: “You have beautiful skin,” she said. As a survivor of skin cancer, I was reminded of what a gift healthy skin is, and how important it is to maintain it.

Each day I smooth make-up on my face with a sunscreen in it. I don’t go out of the house without it. I remember how wonderful it was to find this makeup 20 years ago. Back then, there were no foundations with sunscreens in them. You had to apply sunscreen (often gooey and irritating to the eyes), then apply your base makeup over it.

Now things are different. It’s easy to find makeup that has sunscreen with SPF 15 –there’s even a line of makeup with powders that come complete with sunscreen of SPF 15.

But in other ways, things haven’t changed. Tanning salons are still quite popular — and people don’t realize how damaging these can be to the skin, and that they are no safer than sun exposure.

In fact, it’s easy to prevent skin cancer — just don’t overexpose yourself to the sun or to tanning salons. Wear a hat and cover up when you’ll be spending extended hours in the sun.

Years ago, when I asked famed scientist Margaret Kripke what the cure would eventually be for skin cancer her answer was simple. “It’s prevention,” she said. “To stop skin cancer in the rats in my lab I just have to do one thing–turn off the UV lights,” she said.