Why We Don't Encourage People to Use SPF?
It seems to have become FACT that if you want to protect your skin from premature ageing you must defend it with an SPF moisturiser? We were asked why Natural Elements, the best the UK has to offer in natural anti-ageing, doesn’t have any SPF ingredients in their products? Especially when we preach so much about prevention of premature ageing…
So, let’s break the science down:
You have UVB and UVA from the sun. UVB is the burn, UVA is the radiation emitted by the sun. SPF protects your skin from the burn, usually through reflective particles contained in the product that bounces the UVB ray away from the skin. This is usually a chemical and a harmful one at that. It’s been clinically proven to leak into the body and even found in cancerous tumours! We won’t use it in our products. If you want to stop the burn we recommend being cautious with the sun; build up your melanin slowly each day (15 minutes in the sun first day, 20 minutes in the sun the next) and ultimately stay in the shade the rest of the time.
If you have no choice but to be in the sun for a long time then apply a natural oil first before putting on a SPF cream, this way the oil acts as a barrier and stops the SPF molecules being absorbed by the body.
Now for UVA, this radiation emitted by the sun is everywhere and a lot of SPFs won’t protect you from UVA (and if you do they may not be using a very effective ingredient to do it).
UVA damage is the main cause of premature ageing by mutating our cells. All our Prevention Facial Oils have Vital oils that protect against UVA radiation.
So, no we don’t put SPF protection in our products because it’s not needed. We protect against the real threat when it comes to premature ageing and that is UVA.
When you see an anti-ageing product that contains SPF, ask if it protects against UVB and UVA because if you want to protect against pigmentation and skin damage it must protect you from UVA.
UPDATE MARCH 2019: Glamour Magazine released an article about beauty toxins killing marine life. UV Filters are on the list of top offenders!
You may have heard about the great step that Hawaii took in Jan 2018 to ban the sale of any sunscreens that contained oxybenzone and octinoxate by 2021. If this wasn't enough for people to realise how dangerous some UV filters could be, then the latest research should help.
The magazine published, '
The ingredients have been shown to be toxic to marine life, including deformed coral larvae, plankton and algae, as well as accumulating in the muscles of fish and crustaceans (which humans then eat). On top of the threat to the marine eco-system, these two chemicals are known as endocrine disruptors, and may cause disruption to human hormones when absorbed through the skin or ingested through contaminated food. While there isn't enough research to say for certain, many researchers suspect that the chemicals may result in a host of health problems, including breast cancer, birth defects and DNA damage when they enter the blood stream.'
You can look at the full article here.