With a sky filled with dark clouds and the sun hardly visible in the monsoon season, you may just skip sunscreen from your daily beauty routine, right? Well, rain and cloudy skies are not a reason to skip sunscreen. In fact, sunscreen during monsoon season is even more important.
Sunscreen is used to protect your skin from harmful UV rays. When your skin is exposed to the rays for a very long time, your skin gets dark due to the formation of melanin, resulting in sunburn, which results in premature ageing since it damages the skin fiber. Apart from this, it also results in freckles and melanoma, a type of skin cancer.
Agreed that during the rainy season, we are not directly exposed to the sun’s rays since it is cloudy. But it is important to note that UV rays coming through the clouds are even more harmful and concentrated since 95 percent of rays that reach the ground convert into UVA rays, which penetrate deep into the skin, and your skin needs protection.
Here are important points to remember while using sunscreen during the monsoon:
1. Exposure to UV rays is highest during the day, especially between 11 am to 4 pm.
Want to reverse your skin woes? Use a sunscreen. Image courtesy: Shutterstock
2. One should apply sunscreen even in the house, as rays penetrate through the window.
3. Apply the sunscreen 30 minutes before getting exposed to the sun so that it gets absorbed in your skin well.
4. Reapplication of sunscreen every 2 hours is important, especially in the case of exercising, swimming, or sweating.
5. While buying sunscreen, note that it should have 30 SPF or higher and should protect against both UV and UVA rays.
6. During the rainy season, the humidity makes even normal skin oily and greasy, so one should use gel-based sunscreen.
7. Also, one can use water-resistant sunscreen so that it doesn’t get washed off in the rain.
8. Not only your face, but it is also important to apply sunscreen on your entire body because even though you are wearing clothes, UV rays still penetrate.
Practice proper sunscreen safety! Image courtesy: Shutterstock
9. Before choosing a sunscreen, understand your skin type first. Though water based sunscreen is best for all skin types, consult a dermatologist for expert advice to understand a better type of sunscreen.
Hence, even if it’s raining heavily outside, or be it any season, applying sunscreen should be the most important task in your beauty routine.
