DAYTON -- Finally it feels like summer so that means it is time to protect your skin. The sunscreen you already have at home may be a bit misleading, and the bottles on store shelves have changed a lot.
"I love the plants, the wildlife all the water that you see here," said Michele Sostakowski who visits Cox Arboretum as much as she and her kids can. They are enjoying the Summer-like day. And she always comes armed with Sunscreen, a minimum of SPF 30.
"Want to make sure we don't get any sunburns, try and avoid skin cancer," said Sostakowski.
"If you're going to leave your house - at all - for even just a minute, we want that SPF 30 on any exposed area," said Dr. Gwyn King, a Dermatologist with the Dayton Skin Specialists.
"The fraction of protection above 30 becomes smaller, but what a higher number does is it will protect you longer."
Since there's not a big difference, Doctors say there's no need to spend the extra money on higher SPFs - but you need to reapply often - at least every two hours. Thanks to new FDA regulations, all the bottles you buy now have both UVA and UVB protection, and you shouldn't be able to find one that says "Waterproof," since it's considered misleading.
Even on cloudy days, you need to cover up, said Dr. King, "Up to 80 percent of those dangerous UVA and UVB rays still get through. Those high-energy rays are cutting right through the clouds, right through our skin and causing DNA damage."
So what about those who get tan really easily or have a darker complexion?
"Although we see fewer skin cancers in darker complected patients, for example African American patients, when it happens it's far more deadly. So it's important to protect your skin, regardless," said Dr. King.
Doctors will be glad to hear Michele Sostakowski never goes a day without protecting the ones she loves most.
"I love the plants, the wildlife all the water that you see here," said Michele Sostakowski who visits Cox Arboretum as much as she and her kids can. They are enjoying the Summer-like day. And she always comes armed with Sunscreen, a minimum of SPF 30.
"Want to make sure we don't get any sunburns, try and avoid skin cancer," said Sostakowski.
"If you're going to leave your house - at all - for even just a minute, we want that SPF 30 on any exposed area," said Dr. Gwyn King, a Dermatologist with the Dayton Skin Specialists.
"The fraction of protection above 30 becomes smaller, but what a higher number does is it will protect you longer."
Since there's not a big difference, Doctors say there's no need to spend the extra money on higher SPFs - but you need to reapply often - at least every two hours. Thanks to new FDA regulations, all the bottles you buy now have both UVA and UVB protection, and you shouldn't be able to find one that says "Waterproof," since it's considered misleading.
Even on cloudy days, you need to cover up, said Dr. King, "Up to 80 percent of those dangerous UVA and UVB rays still get through. Those high-energy rays are cutting right through the clouds, right through our skin and causing DNA damage."
So what about those who get tan really easily or have a darker complexion?
"Although we see fewer skin cancers in darker complected patients, for example African American patients, when it happens it's far more deadly. So it's important to protect your skin, regardless," said Dr. King.
Doctors will be glad to hear Michele Sostakowski never goes a day without protecting the ones she loves most.