How to Damage Your Skin

Your skin is the largest organ in your body, and it takes a lot of abuse. Constantly exposed to the elements, your epidermis (and the layers beneath) can really take a beating, especially if you’re guilty of the following skin sins.

Want to preserve your skin? Here’s what not to do.

By Beth JanesYou spend precious morning minutes putting it on, and another chunk of time taking it off at night, day after day after day….No wonder you want your makeup to deliver even greater benefits! Beauty companies have embraced this multitasking approach. Increasingly, foundations, blushes, and lipsticks boast the same wrinkle-fighting ingredients, double-digit SPFs, and botanical boosters you’ve come to expect from skin-care creams, sunscreens, and masks.

There was a time when people thought it was perfectly fine to slather their bodies in baby oil and spend entire days baking in the sun. Over the years, dermatologists set us straight, telling us in no uncertain terms that sun worshipping will only put us on the path to premature aging — and skin cancer.

“If there’s one thing in the world that one can do to avoid the ravages of injury to the skin, it’s avoid the sun,” says Norman Levine, MD, a dermatologist in Tucson, Arizona and the author of Skin Healthy: Everyone’s Guide to Great Skin.“The sun has effects on the cells that renew the skin, and when those cells are injured irreparably you get skin aging and you are more prone to skin cancer.”

You can tell right away when someone’s been spending a lot of time in the sun, says Jennifer Stein, MD, PhD, assistant professor of dermatology at NYU Langone Medical Center. “Their skin looks very wrinkly and is covered in lots of brown spots, and that’s from years and years of sun damage.”

Your sunscreen probably isn’t shielding you from sun damage because most of us don’t apply the shot-glass-sized amount (1 ounce) of SPF 30 or higher sunscreen — the minimum experts say we need to protect us.

“Most people under-apply by one-fourth. Whatever you’re putting on is probably too little, so at least double it,” says Jeffrey Dover, MD, FRCPC, associate clinical professor of dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine] and director of SkinCare Physicians in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Many people also don’t apply sunscreen every two hours as dermatologists recommend.

If you’re going to be outside, don’t forget to wear protective clothing and a wide-brimmed hat, and seek the shade, as well as wearing sunscreen (and reapplying it as needed). Then your skin is as protected as possible.

Think a tanning bed is safer than being outside in the sun? Think again.

Tanning beds give you a concentrated burst of ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B light, which causes skin aging and could triple your risk for melanoma skin cancer. “Never go into a tanning parlor,” Levine says. “There couldn’t be a worse thing to do to your skin.”

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