Romancing the sun

What does it take to have a healthy relationship with the sun?

By: Joan Harting Barham

Photography: Leda & St. Jacques

(4 people)

Pagination

The sun is like the cutest guy in school: the golden-haired Adonis with a well-earned reputation as a heartbreaker. There’s that delicious warmth when he turns his smile on you, the heat when he touches your skin. You feel better, prettier, more worthy after spending time in his company. But you know that it’s not smart to be seduced, that you could get burned.

With the actual celestial sun, the best way to handle this sort of love/hate relationship is, of course, with sunscreen. And the current gold standard in sunscreens is full-spectrum (also called broad-spectrum) coverage. To fully understand what this means, you have to navigate the alphabet soup of UVA, UVB and SPF and a host of ingredients.

For instance, to appreciate Neutrogena’s broad-spectrum Helioplex sunscreens, you have to know that UVA rays are categorized as either short or long (which refers to their respective wavelengths) and that both types are damaging. You also have to know that avobenzone, one of the most powerful long-wave UVA filters, is notoriously photo-unstable — that is, it tends to degrade and lose efficacy when exposed to sunlight. Helioplex technology hinges on the discovery of a patented method of stabilizing
avobenzone and successfully combining it with the well-established UVB and short-wave UVA protection of oxybenzone. L’Oréal researchers have taken a slightly different tack with its recently developed Mexoryl XL filtering ingredient, which is found in Vichy Laboratoires’ Capital Soleil, Ombrelle and La Roche-Posay Anthelios products. Mexoryl XL by itself provides photo-stable protection against both UVA and UVB rays. In synergy with L’Oréal’s existing Mexoryl SX filter, Mexoryl XL delivers broad-spectrum protection along with enhanced UVA protection.