Posted by Julian
Posted on 07-01-2008 under Office Nonsense

For those of you who have seen me in person… I am a very pale individual.  For this reason I always remember to wear sunscreen.  What I don’t always remember is to make sure my sunscreen is effective.

This weekend I spent a day on the beautiful beaches of San Diego.  Of course when I got to the beach, after placing my towel and stuff down I decided to get the sun screen going. This is were I made my first mistake.  A female friend of mine offered up her sunscreen, this fancy spray on type.  I thought to myself ‘well she uses it, she is pale, so it should work for me‘  This was my first mistake… turns out that although pale, she never burns…. DOH.  She then proceeded to spray on this aerosol / environment destroying / fancy sun screen.  Looking back, I now realize that it was a windy day… spray… ouch.

Next mistake was to run into the water, without checking to see if the sunscreen was “sport” water proof.  It wasn’t.  Three good waves later and the little bit of sunscreen I had is gone!

The last mistake was that when we were leaving the beach, I failed to consider whether the redness of my skin should be treated before the 2 hours drive home.  When the backs of ones knees are burned, that car seat tends to irritate.

So here are Julian’s ‘everyone already knows this’ tips to Sunburn prevention.

• Wear Sunscreen (my friend got it even worse) - had none at all.
• Make sure the sunscreen is waterproof.
• Make sure you cover all areas - Got a nice blotchy spot on the left shoulder blade.
• Re-apply - Seriously, put that sunscreen on every hour or two depending on the strength.
• Don’t go outside.  Yeah this is the best one.  It’s horrible being out here in Southern California.  Just stay inside.