From recent research, sunlight is the major cause of aging skin. Our skin aged is about 80% from the sun damage and only 20% is caused by genetic. The sunlight consists of UVA and UVB, which penetrates to our skin and damage our collagen layer and stimulate the production of melanin. As a result, our skin turns to wrinkles, sagging, dark spots and dehydration.

To prevent early skin aging and delay the aging process, we should avoid excessive sun exposure and always do sun protection. Nowadays, we have tons of sun protection skin care products in the market and having higher and higher SPF value. Some of them reach up to SPF 150. But, does higher SPF value guarantee to be good? What is SPF? How do we pick the most suitable one for our daily protection?

SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor. Sunscreens are rated by the Sun Protection Factor (SPF) system which is mainly a measure of UVB protection. Generally speaking, the numeric value simply indicates how much longer that sunscreen can enable you to stay in the sun before you start experiencing sunburn. For example, the SPF 15 sunscreen allows a person to stay out in the sun 15 times longer. If you usually take 20 minutes to burn, the sunscreen will delay the onset of sunburn to 300 minutes.
In general, SPF 15 will be adequate for sun protection in our daily activities. However, if you will stay outside more often during Summer time, higher SPFs is more justifiable. Pay attention to those sunscreen with exaggerate SPF value, which their ingredients may deteriorate our skin color and dye our clothes to yellowish color.
You will also see some sunscreens in the market labelled with PA+, PA++ & PA+++ to indicate their protection level. Then, what does PA stand for? How do these symbols work? Stay tune and we will tell you next time.