I love being outside. I hate the sun. I also hate sunscreen.
I feel like there’s a weird split between the reality of having this gross white goop on you all the time (most people don’t wear sunscreen all the time, right? Right??) and the reality of the sun basically wanting us all dead.
This sunburn calculator made by a dermatologist will show you how quickly you can actually get burned. Personally, today, I literally can’t stay outside for longer than 14-ish minutes (probably even shorter in my case) without any sunscreen before I’ve had too much sun.
Even on a somewhat cloudy day, I can’t stay out there for more than half an hour. I notice that I’m getting too much sun, too. I feel like my eyes are sunburned practically. I struggle to comprehend how skin like this even evolved. People practically shame me for “not going out enough” when they straight-up just have darker skin than me.
…And yet the idea of always putting sunscreen on is like, some kind of social faux pas on top of me really not wanting to. It smells, people notice that it smells, it feels gross, people notice that I’m even pastier than usual. It’s like wow, you care about skin care enough to deal with that and spend gobs of money sticking a shot glass of sunscreen on yourself every two hours? God forbid if I actually had lip balm of all things as a man, and wearing clothing that would actually keep the sun at bay a little bit, ahhhahahaha. No. /rant
TL;DR what do y’all do about the sun existing?
Edit: I got over myself and started buying decent sunscreen. And decent SPF lip balm because Jesus Christ my lips are somethin’ else. If people think it’s weird to not get skin cancer that’s their problem.
I live in Australia so the sun is rather deadly - I guess for me personally when you grow up with constant TV advertising about sunscreen and “slip slop slap” as a national saying (slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen and slap on a hat!) our perspective around sun protection is somewhat different.
Like everything else in this country the sun is also trying to kill us with skin cancer being one of the leading medical concerns in this country.
Personally I cannot stand ANYTHING on my face (especially!) serious sensory issues and things like creams and makeup (F here) make my skin crawl, but I find a light smearing and a hat better than the alternative in summer - just have to remember to reapply all the time - but again it’s kind of ingrained into our social psyche here because having dealt with sunburn on many occasions I would prefer to not get burnt to a crisp (because nobody like peeling skin…)
I’m a keen mountain biker so it’s important as I spend a lot of time outdoors. Even in winter here the sun will still burn you if not careful.
TLDR: sun protection is a big part of life in Australia and introduced at birth so we kind of just get used to it because the alternative is not to go outside during the day especially in summer (stuff that!!)