We all know how important it is to wear sunscreen.We get warnings all the time about this problem, but a lot of people don't seem to think it can happen to the. The national statistics about skin cancer are pretty alarming. In fact, the website, Cancer Center . Com gives a some pretty scary numbers when it comes to skin cancer:

Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers. Each year, more than 3.5 million Americans will be diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, and 76,380 melanoma cases will be diagnosed in 2016.

Short of always staying out of the sun, all experts agree that sunscreen goes a long way in skin cancer prevention, but some new research from Consumer Reports, that sunscreen may not always be as effective as some name brands claim to be.

If you go shopping for sunscreen and don't end up confused, you're a lot smarter than I. It seems that the sunscreen isle in most stores off so many choices in scents, price and, of course, SPF. Now those little initials stand for Skin Protection Factor and they're some pretty important numbers and now, according to Consumer Reports, we find out that the SPF numbers on several brands of sunscreen are inaccurate at best and misleading at worst.

 

 

Walk by any sunscreen aisle and the options seem endless: SPF 12, 30, 50...spray, lotion, waterproof, sport.  So what do you really need to look for and how can you be sure you are getting the best protection?  A new analysis of sunscreens is finding many do not work as well as promised. In fact, according to Trisha Calvo with Consumer Reports says:

"43 percent of the sunscreens that we tested this year did not meet their SPF claims in our tests,"

One brand of sunscreen, Banana Boat KIds and CVS Kids both have a label claim of 50 which is pretty high, but when the product was tested, it came out with an SPF of only 8. Now, that my friends, really makes you wonder how and why they can make such an exaggerated claim.

The trials conducted by Consumer Reports show that of the 65 sunscreens tested, nearly half did not offer the level of SPF listed on their labels.

The good news is that Consumer Reports did find that some sunscreen products to pass the test and among those are:

Pure Sun Defense SPF 50 ($6.30)
Coppertone Water Babies SPF 50 ($10.50)
Equate Ultra Protection SPF 50 ($7.85).

Before you go out and buy sunscreen this season, you should probably take a few minutes and check out the entire article in Consumer Reports HERE.

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