Too much sun brings on liver spots. Golfers get them on their right hand but not on their left because they wear a golf glove on their left hand. They appear from too much sun. Just so you won’t forget, too much sun not only causes irregular coloring or pigmentation of the skin it also puts you at high risk of early wrinkling, cellular damage, thinning skin, actinic keratoses (scaly patches) and skin cancer.

To prevent sun spots you need to limit your sun exposure – it’s that simple. And if you must be in the sun, use sun protection, a broad-spectrum sunscreen which blocks both ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (USB) rays.

  • Avoid the sun during high-intensity hours from 10 am to 4 pm.
  • Wear protective clothing such as long sleeved shirts and long pants and wide brimmed hats.
  • Use sunscreen 30 minutes before going outdoors so that your skin has time to absorb the sunscreen. Then reapply according to the label usually about every hour.

About that left over sunscreen from last year. You can use it. Sunscreens are formulated to remain stable and at original strength for up to three years so you can use a sunscreen from one summer to the next. Discard those sunscreens if it’s after their listed expiration date or it’s more than three years.

Keep in mind, however, that if you use sunscreen the way you should, frequently and a lot, there should not be much left over. You should be using about 1 ounce, the amount in a shot glass, to cover all the exposed parts of your body. All of which means if you have a 4 ounce bottle of sunscreen, you’re going to use a bottle in 4 applications.

Treatments of age spots in my next post.

To your success at healthy aging.
Ruthan Brodsky

Tagged with: • • •

Filed under: Skin

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!