Do you know how color helps sun blocking clothing work together to protect you from too much sun and possible sunburn? Pay attention to each layer of sun protection and you will be able to make better choices
Color can help our clothing block the sun. This color chart shows many hues of colors, and then, there is black and grey with all the shades between these two colors.
Let’s review the basics first. The fabric is more important than the color. Remember, we are wanting them to work together. How the fabric is woven tightly or loosely, is where we start when using clothing to protect our skin from the sun.
A tightly woven fabric such as denim or canvas will protect your skin better than a loosely woven fabric.
Look at labels and see what materials are woven into your shirt to determine if it is a good choice to help protect your skin from the sun. Man-made fabrics are usually good choices. Polyester and cotton are great blends if the weave is tight.
Now to that fabric blend and tight weave, add color, and you have a formidable defense. A defense to better protect you from the sun.
What Is The Best Color For Blocking UV Rays?
Darker colors absorb more of the sun’s direct rays. Yes, this makes darker shirts warmer on your body. This is why you may want to consider some sun blocking clothing that is rated and specially made for protecting your skin.
Lighter-colored clothing will reflect the heat. You will be cooler, but you will need to be aware of the danger caused by reflected rays.
Obviously, it isn’t as easy as you might think. Let me remind you, when planning a day in the direct sun, planning ahead will make you have a better day. Yes, even if you are a teenager. You only get so many free passes.
What is this about free passes? Being in the sun safely is a balance, and you only get to mess up and get a sunburn so many times before your skin cell’s DNA is damaged beyond allowing smooth healing.
Will You Get A Sunburn?
So how many times can I sunburn and heal properly? There is no known number for everyone. Each of us is different, and some get more time in the sun than others. My sister, with blue eyes and blonde hair, does not sunburn as quickly as I do.
I know, no one said life was fair. Darker tone skin people can usually be out longer than pale skin color allows. Some can sunburn in 20 minutes, others take a couple of hours. Yes, sunburn with peeling skin in 20 minutes.
A combination of being more aware, having safer sun lifestyles, and plain on common sense will let you spend more safe time in the sun.
So darker color shirts in the right fabric are your best bet.
Lighter colors in the right fabric are your next best bet.
What Are The Better Colors To Be Safe In The Sun?
Now that you are aware of the importance of better fabric, getting to the fun part of selecting the safer colors for you is important.
Darker colors, like black, deep gray, dark blues, deep purples, greens, and reds. Then there are deeper golds and oranges with browns as well. Deep pink. Those are the ones that will protect your skin.
Pale colors, like sky blue, baby pink, or any light color can be safe for a while if the shirt is made of the proper fabric. This is why the fit of the garment is a factor as well.
Dark colors keep you warmer because the fabric absorbs the heat from the sun’s rays. You need a loose fit for the warm air to be able to circulate and escape.
What Is The Proper Fit For Sun Blocking Clothing
Now we are adding a third thing, to the basics of fabric and color.
Color is very important, and will boost the protection of your clothing if the garment is properly fitted.
A sun blocking shirt in a deeper color will absorb the sun’s rays and keep them off your skin. A loose fit will allow the heat to escape your body and shirt. Wearing your shirt untucked, and hanging loose is cooler.
We are saying a looser fit, not a sloppy too big oversize. Clothing can be too loose to be comfortable. There are many factors in staying safe from the sun. Clothing made from tightly woven fabric, or specially made fabric is the starting place.
Then the color is important, absorbing or reflecting the sun’s rays. Next is the way the garment fits. Easy fitting, not sloppy. Start with your sunglasses, and add your sun-blocking hat. Then the fabric of your sun blocking shirt, and the color along with the fit.
There is a reason there are so many questions about how color makes a difference in sun blocking clothing. Each layer depends on the other. All are important.
Tee shirts that are too tight will stretch and allow the sun into your skin. So yes darker might be better, it cannot protect you if it does not fit properly.
If your garment is worn too much, especially in normal clothing, you can expect some sun damage. A favorite old white often washed tee shirt can’t protect you like a newer shirt whose fabric is in better condition. So watching for proper fit, and too much wear is very important when shopping amount normal clothing.
When choosing UPF, or sun blocking clothing, that has been UPF rated, the condition of fabric is important as well. Rit Sun Guard conditioner to add to your laundry cycle can help with clothes that are beginning to show wear and use. Conditioning the fabric can make them safer.
Staying Protected From The Sun Is A Multi-Step Effort
So, we have a better more protective color. Add the right fabric. Don’t forget the proper fit. Add sunscreen where you are not covered with clothing. No sun hat? Apply sunscreen to the face, ears, and neck. Short sleeves? Apply sunscreen. Short pants, apply sunscreen. No gloves? Apply sunscreen to the backs of the hands.
Living a sun-safe lifestyle will enable you to do a better job of protecting your skin. Learning to protect your skin from the sun involves a multi-level effort. Clothing with added features to protect your skin. Can you expect clothing to fully protect you from a long day in the sun? If you do your part. Help yourself to healthier skin.
Sun-Safe Life Style
Do you think that you can be a beach bum all your life? Spend as much time as you want to in the sun? Do you want to do all this and not run the risk of skin cancer?
Let’s talk about the safer side of living. Avoiding the direct sun. Stay out of the sun between 10 AM and 4 PM.
If you are out spending a short time in the sun, then breaking it up with rest in the shade is recommended to allow your skin to cool down to a healthier temperature. If you do not have to stay out in the mid-day hours, do your skin a favor and don’t!
Scheduling activities later in the afternoon or earlier in the morning is a skin-safe way to live your life. Unfortunately, we have all been living a schedule that has us in the sun during such dangerous times of the day.
Our whole world lives a risky sun schedule. Swimming pools open at 11 AM in the summer. Then close at 6 PM, at least here in our little town. I do understand that this schedule is economical for the payroll, and with just having available employees period.
However, this is such a dangerous sun time for your skin. Public pools have always been an activity center for small communities.
And if you live in a small town as we do, and want your kids to have access to swimming, you will need to be prepared. Help keep the kids safer with sunscreen as well as cover-ups and sun hats with sunglasses.
Sun Safe Living During The Normal Times Of The Year
Making a few adjustments to your lifestyle can be all you need to make your everyday lifestyle more sun safe. We all usually make some allowances for sun protection during vacations to the beach or skiing in the winter, but what about every day?
How can you take advantage of the information we have? Can you start your family on a safer sun lifestyle every day? This is when the damage actually starts accumulating. We tend to remember the sunburns we get on vacation.
We can’t remember the ones that happened while you were in the garden, at a ball game when you were just standing talking to your neighbor. It only takes a few minutes to sunburn.
Even At A Funeral, You Can Sunburn
I got a sunburn in the early part of November of this year. At my sister-in-law’s cemetery services. We sat with our backs to the sun, and my collar slipped down. That has left the back of my neck tender and quick to react to a tag on a shirt that is a bit itchy.
Such a quick and surprising way to get sunburn! But it happens. Apparently, I did not apply sunscreen to the back of my neck. We are all in positions of getting exposed in our sunny part of Texas.
Applying sunscreen to my face and neck has been a habit I have adopted these past 2 years. However, I was not careful. Pulling my collar in place before sitting would probably have been all I needed to do.
Just like wearing my sun blocking shirt with a collar and long sleeves that are lose fitting. Wearing my sun hat. Sunglasses are always necessary. If I drive anywhere, my loose-fitting shirt keeps me comfortable and out of the sun.
Putting sunscreen on our kids’ faces and arms for a car trip is important. Yes, generations before them have survived without that. But look at their skin. Skin looks old so quickly because we don’t protect ourselves. With clothing and sunscreen, we can help avoid some of the skin cancer that is so common in our world now.
Sami’s Take On “Color Helps Sun Blocking Clothing”
Color is important in protecting your skin from the sun. Learning the basics about which colors will help most and why, will help you can make better choices when shopping in your closet with normal clothes.
It is often hard to find what we want to wear at what we can afford without the added bit of the extra cost of making the garment UPF. The extra steps for this added sun protection do cost more. It is what makes the item able to protect your skin.
So we are all going to be looking for work-a-rounds at times. This will make color an added benefit for clothing that is normal. Your shirt from The Gap can be a good one if it is of a blend of cotton-poly and is in deeper colors.
Walmart shirts can protect you and your kids. If they have good deep color and are fairly new, or not washed and worn too much.
Remember the fit. Make sure that you are not stretching your tee shirts too much and allowing the sun to reach The skin on your shoulders and back. The shirt needs to be loose-fitting to protect you.
Make sure you have chosen the best that you have in your closet, apply sunscreen daily, and remember your sunglasses. Your sun hat is important too. These are important habits to add to your skin protection lifestyle.
Is your everyday life sun safe? How can you make better choices? Have you found some ideas that can help us all stay safer in the sun? Please share in the comment section below.
Thank you,
Sami