June 20, 2002 — The number on your favorite bottle of sunscreen may be within the double digits, but you’ll only get approximately half that sum of security unless you know how much to utilize. That’s why some researchers are calling for a simple “two finger” strategy to assist you get the foremost out of your sunscreen.
The sun assurance figure, or SPF, that a sunscreen conveys is determined by testing skin that’s been liberally slathered with a thick coat of sunscreen. But studies have shown that most individuals apply as it were 25% to 75% of this sum.
No universal standard on sunscreens specifies how much people ought to use, although it’s expected to be the same amount that’s initially used to test the item, concurring to the researchers. “So it isn’t astounding that consumers don’t know how to apply sunscreens viably.”
Their measurement direct is based on a “rule of nines” that isolates the body’s surface area or skin into 11 zones that each account for around 9% of the full. The zones are:
Head, neck, and face Left arm Right arm Upper back Lower back Upper front torso Lower front middle Right upper leg and thigh Cleared out upper leg and thigh Cleared out lower leg and foot Right lower leg and foot
The creators say the correct amount of sunscreen can be applied to each these 11 ranges in the event that people use the “two finger” method. Which means two strips of sunscreen ought to be pressed from the tip to the base of the record and middle fingers and connected to each of these ranges.
But the researchers note that numerous people may be unwilling to cover themselves or their families with such a bountiful layer of sunscreen.
An elective would be to apply one finger’s worth of sunscreen initially — knowing that the amount of assurance will only be about half of the SPF written on the bottle — and after that reapply another fingertip worth of item inside a half hour of the initial application.
The proposal from Steve Taylor, a general professional with the Sunset Road Family Specialists in Auckland, Unused Zealand, and Brian Diffey, professor of therapeutic physics at Newcastle Common Clinic, in Newcastle, England, is published within the June 22 issue of the British Medical Diary.