SKIN TIPS #4: CHOOSING SUNSCREEN

• Avoid 'cheap' brands

• Pick 'Broad Spectrum'; protection against UVA (aging) and UVB (burning)

• Spray on sunscreen is helpful if your hands get dirty at work

• Transparent zinc is excellent and you can also use it on your lips

• Elizabeth Arden is hypo allergenic (but expensive)

• Indoors, deep shadows and night time (100% natural sunscreen)

Remember Chapstick?

Our bottom lips sits 'proud to the sun' like wee solar panels. People who have collected too much UV on the bottom lip (fishermen farmers gardeners etc) often develop a line of flaking skin on the bottom lip at the point where the lip skin meets the chin skin. This is a precancerous change called 'Actinic cheilitis' (this is a precancerous condition caused by long-term sun exposure). It leads to rough, scaly, discolored patches on your lips. It's more common in men, people with fair skin, those who work outside and populations in places where the sun is stronger.. Untreated Actinic cheilitis can progress to lip cancer. To treat it we freeze the damaged skin with liquid nitrogen. This is jolly effective, and the lip recovers quickly. The thing is, no one likes getting their lip frozen, because the it stings and then the lip is unsightly while its healing. That's why chap stick is such a fine thing.

If you are feeling sad its best to stay inside where you can poke your bottom lip out safely!

Think solar panels

Our noses, cheek bones, bottom lips and bald patches all sit 'proud to the sun' - common sites for cancers. Good places for sunscreen.

'Occupational' considerations include:

• the backs of hands in horticultural workers and gardeners - a case for gloves

• the legs of dingy sailors and cyclists

• the forearms of kayakers

• the tops of the feet in Jandal wearers

• the driver's window forearms of truckies

• and the pallid plumbers cracks of bending men!

What we are doing often changes where the sun screen is required. Long sleeves and long trousers are a good idea.