Have you wondered What Are The “Best colors” To Avoid Sunburn?
What Colors Are The “Best Colors” To Avoid Sunburn? Have you been trying to make some decisions about what color has to do with protecting you and your family from the sun?
Trying to keep everyone’s skin safe from the sun as we are becoming aware of the long-term dangers of sunburn? Yes, this is right up there with keeping your family on a healthy diet to allow the kids to grow healthy bones and have healthy diet preferences. Just as setting your family up for diet-related health issues, keeping their skin healthy is important.
Skin cancer is a threat regardless of where you live. So it is important to know your risks.
Each year two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the age of 70. In the US it is more like 1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with some form of skin cancer. These are outrageous forecasts!
Think about this for your family.
Skin Cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in Australia, as well as in the United States, and it can be almost entirely prevented! Is the color of clothing really important? Color helps, but more important is the physical block of clothing. Anything is better than nothing.
How can we prevent skin cancer? Common sense and good sun protection.
Best Color For Preventing Sunburn
Wearing sun-protective clothing is the best way to protect your skin. Make sure that ultraviolet radiation (UVR) from the sun can’t penetrate your fabric. If you are wearing a shirt from your closet, is the fabric tightly woven? Does the sun peek through any weaving holes when held up between you and the sun or light?
A shirt or a pair of pants stays in place. They don’t rub or wash off as sunscreen will.
Clothing will offer a barrier between your skin and UVR from the sun. How important is the color?
Color matters, and black, darker blues are better. Red and purple are good, as is deep green. Darker colors protect better than lighter ones do. When choosing your family’s shirts for school and the life they lead, the darker color will protect you more.
But there are a few things to pay attention to, and you will get great results and offer better protection for you and your family. Not all clothing styles and fabrics are will prevent sunburn.
With UV levels becoming extreme, with the loss of the Ozone thickness we have been accustomed to. Summertime heat and sun exposure are so dangerous. We must remember how important our clothing can be. Our clothing must provide as much UVR protection as possible.
What Is So Great About UPF?
The general rule for deciding a fabric’s ability to provide a barrier to UV Rays:
Hold the fabric up to the sun or fluorescent light.
If you can see the light coming through, it will allow UVR to pentrate too.
Yes, we know this is not a real scientific way. This test only offers a rough guide. The scientific measurement of fabric is the only true test of its UV Rays protective factor.
This scientific measurement is known as the UPF rating.
The rating gives you the infomation for how much UV Rays will pass through a particular fabric. If the fabric is stretches when worn? Or if it gets wet? The numbers will change.
So the UV Rays ability to pass through unstretched, dry material.
These numbers are telling you that:
Material with a UPF rating of 50 would only allow 1/20th (5%) of the UV Rays falling on its surface to pass through it, therefore blocking 95% of UV Rays.
With a UPF rating of 15, that garment is considered to provide only a minimum protection.
A rating of 30 UPF provides good protection.
Garments with ratings of 50 and 50+UPF provide excellent protection.
Any fabric that is rated UPF 15? There is little protection against UV Rays.
This is why UPF 50+ is recommended.
Where do you find the rating of a particular garment? The lable of course. Always check the lables to make sure you are getting what you think you are getting.
Laundry instructions are also found on the lables, and this will help you take care of your SPF clothing.
The life of a garment is considered 3 years. The fabric will beshowing wear and maybe have lost some of it’s ability to protect in this length of time.
Color For Sun Blocking Clothing
When you have sun blocking clothing with a UPF factor rating? You can choose any color and expect to be protected from the sun. As long as the fabric is dry, or not stretched on your body.
To get the most out of sun protective clothing? A loose fit is needed. When your garment is too tight, the fabric will stretch, and let sun through.
This is true of leggings, as well as any other garment made of with UPF rating. So think through your wish list for actual UPF factors considered.
With a swimsuit, will you get the protection you need? If you wear your swimsuit and don’t get in and out of the water, and don’t have a coverup on, yes you may benefit from a sun blocking swimsuit. However, a coverup will protect your skin after you are out of the water. A wet sun blocking swim suit won’t.
A loose fitting long sleeve shirt will be a good buy. It will protect you from the time you slip it on untill it is taken off. The protection is there.
Long pants are another good buy. They protect your legs.
Your sunhat is another good example of baic protection wardrobe. Your sun glasses, equally important.
Design, Color, UPF
With new information to start shopping for your answer to What Are The “Best Colors” To Avoid Sunburn question, here are some suggestions.
Going out in the sun has been for most of us a time of undressing, not dressing!
We all thought we wanted those bronze tans! Little did we know the cost!
Along with the fabric and color, we should also consider the design of the clothing we are thinking will protect us from the sun.
Yes, this means we must to cover up! It is no longer cool to be bronze!
Look for tops that fully cover your shoulders and extend down below your hip line.
Sleeves that extend to at least 3/4 of length of your arm. Pants that fully cover your body from the hipline halfway to your knee. Clothing that only needs sunscreen on your hands, lower part of your legs? Offer a safer way to be out in the sun.
Choose your collar. Shirts or tops with higher necklines that cover the upper chest and collarbones. Crew necks or collared shirts with a buttoned-up, closed neck line.
Be aware that some polo shirts have good collars but leave the delicate areas on the upper chest and neck exposed to UV when unbuttoned.
Longer is better. Choose longer sleeves. Longer shorts or trousers, dresses and skirts.
It’s important to choose clothing that covers as much skin as possible, but still allows ventilation to keep the body cool.
Suggestions For A Sun Blocking Wardrobe For You And Your Family
Remember these guideline when purchasing your kids clothes for school. If they are not UPF, dark blue and black, red, purple and deep green. Darker colors help soak up UV Rays and protect your family.
If you work outside, these are especially important for you. Skin cancer is normally the result of accumulative damage to your skin. That is why it is the most preventable.
A long-sleeved rashie, swim suit or paddle suit are a must. Sunscreen isn’t always great in the water, so covering the skin with a rashie is crucial.
The Cancer Council recommends hats that provide good shade for your face, back of your neck and ears when outdoors.
Broad-brimmed hats with a brim of 6cm for children or 7.5cm for older students and adults.
Bucket hats with a brim of at least 3 inches.
Tightly woven straw with a 3 inch brim.
Baseball caps do not provide enough protection, and are not recommended.
For the best level of protection from UV Rays, use all five sun protection measures: clothing, sunscreen, a hat, shade and sunglasses.
Sami’s Take On What Are The “Best Colors” To Avoid Sunburn?
As I think about the question of the best colors to avoid sunburn, I am aware that for UPF any color is good. The darker colors will keep the sun from reflecting the dangerous rays back on your face. They will absorb and hold the reflections.
White and light will reflect more. A white shirt will reflect all the rays back to your face. Even with a sun hat on. So, with this in mind, darker colors win.
However, they will be warmer as well, so having sunblocking garments that are a loose fit, and allow air to circulate are better. This for days in the sun.
Evenings are a safer time for the off the shoulder tops or bottoms that allow more skin to show. This is oppisite from what we normally think, but for sun safety, better.
What will you begin to work on to improbe your sun blocking skin protection with? Will you pay attention and allow your skin to be protected with clothing?
You will still need your sunscreen for exposed arears. Working with your sunscreen and sun blocking clothing will be easier, as well as more successrful.
Don’t Forget The Common Sense Help
Remember to be aware of the safer times of day to be out in the sun. Some events can well be scheduled till after 4 PM in the hotter time of the year. Or before 10 AM.
You can find shade to sit in or play in. Take portable shade, cabanas, and umbrellas. There can be other make-shift shade areas for lounging, visiting, and playing.
Take frequent breaks and cool down. With sunburn you will probably develop a temperature. Breaks in the shade can help cool your body and resist sunburn.
Drink lots of water. Staying hyderated is very important for a healthy out come and protected skin.