Studies show most of us still don't use high factor suncream
Here’s a thought that might have you running for the nearest tube of sunscreen. For the first time in the UK, more than 10,000 people over 55 were diagnosed with melanoma – the most dangerous form of skin cancer – last year, according to Cancer Research UK. Indeed, rates of skin cancers in the over-55s have risen by a staggering 155 per cent in the past 20 years – they're rising among younger people, too, but at a rate of 63 per cent. This is, after all, the generation that pioneered the package holiday, who in the Sixties and Seventies let nothing but a little olive oil get between their limbs and a tan. We’ve come a long way since then and now we all know we need high-factor sunscreen. Yet studies show most of us still don’t use it. What’s more, the rules have changed again, with some sunscreens not as effective as we think and new warnings about unfamiliar types of sun rays. Here, we talk to the experts about the new rules of skin and sun.
Don’t bother with once-a-day sunscreen
Apply more
Only about 14 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women report wearing sunscreen. Even when they do, they use around half what they need. You need two milligrams of sun cream per centimetre squared of skin, says Dr Noor Almaani, consultant dermatologist at the King Edward VII NHS Hospital in Windsor and The Private Clinic of Harley Street, London. “Use about a teaspoon for the face and neck, six teaspoons for the whole body and about three to four teaspoons for a child,” she says.
While the most common area of melanoma skin cancer in men is the back, in women it’s the lower leg, often neglected when it comes to sunscreen, especially by women who exercise outdoors in summer, says Dr Mahto.
Protecting children is paramount – five severe sunburns before the age of 18 can double your risk of developing melanoma skin cancer in later life – but be careful with babies. “Babies under six months should not have sunscreen applied to them because their skin is too thin and sensitive to the chemicals,” says Dr Mahto. “They should be kept out of the sun altogether.”
When it comes to sun protective clothing for adults and children, Dr Lowe recommends Sun Precautions, Coolibar and Sunsibility. This is particularly important if you or your child have skin diseases such as eczema in which skin flakes. “Flaking means sunscreens won’t stick to the skin,” says Dr Lowe. “You should be using sun-protective clothing as well.”
Contrary to what fairy tales may tell you,
relationships take work.
So we collected some of the best social science findings about
what makes them last.
If you feel sick, you go
to the doctor (or Google the symptoms and immediately believe you have
the plague). If you feel unfit, you drag yourself to the gym (or try a
few half-hearted lunges). If you feel bloated, you lay off the jacket
potatoes for a few days. Yet if you feel sad, low, anxious, stressed or
insecure, you just live with it.
Why?
These
emotions can affect your whole life, making everything seem harder,
gloomier and less achievable, but there's still a stupid stigma attached
to self-help. While it's totally normal to care about your physical
health, it's still perceived as weird to care about your mental health.
Which is rubbish. It couldn't be less weird.
We spend all day in our
heads. We never stop thinking, plotting, day-dreaming or worrying. So
doesn't it make sense to want to understand the way your mind works? To
want to know when your thoughts are playing tricks on you? When you're
worrying about absolutely nothing? Or when your mind is rocketing down a
well-worn path to Thumping-Heart-Sweaty-Palm City?
Learning
to recognise negative patterns in your thinking and then learning ways
to change these patterns is the best thing you can do to live a happy
and healthy life – bar nothing.
But self-help can seem intimidating, worthy or preachy. Which is why I've launched a new Instagram video project called BiteSizedPsych:
one-minute-long videos that cut through all the guff to deliver simple
tricks for combating insecurity, anxiety, stress, unhappiness,
procrastination and low self-esteem.
Stuff like, "never press
snooze on your alarm". You don't ever snooze, you just lie there and
start freaking out about the day ahead, or you just count down the
minutes until you really do have to get
up. And the longer you lie there the harder it gets to leave your soft
warm duvet. Yet if you get up straight away your mood will lift
naturally because you're facing the day and taking control. Snooze is
evil for worriers. Ban it and you'll feel a bit better first thing in
the morning. Try it for a week – just one week – and if you don't feel
better I'll eat my new hat (okay, I'll just nibble the brim).
Self-help
doesn't have to be boring and it doesn't only come in brick-sized books
written by people who wear hemp sweaters. It can be interesting,
relatable, positive and even pretty entertaining. And it actually helps.
Khloe Kardashian may have
some serious $$$ in her bank account, but she doesn't feel the need to
splurge on pricey skincare products.
The reality star took to her app, to share the anti-ageing skincare products that keep her complexion looking killer, and it'll probably surprise you just how many of these bits you can pick up from your local Superdrug.
Khloe
started by explaining that good skin starts with hydration, so
she always drinks a ton of water and wears a high SPF every day.
But when it comes to skincare products she has a few favourites, "I cover
my face in oil every night. I love Bio-Oil and Vitamin E , and I just
use Aquaphor on my eyes. All of this stuff is super cheap and can be
found in any drug store."
instagram/KhloeKardashian
She's totally right, Bio-Oil is fairly inexpensive, starting at around £8.99, whilst vitamin E capsules, £4.59, are also pretty friendly on the purse.
After one
mom shared cute photos of her young daughter pretending to breastfeed
her baby doll, she was shocked and horrified to find that not everyone
thought it was so cute — and one even hurled abuse at her for allowing
the behavior in the first place.
The unknown American mom shared her anger and disappointment in a post on the Facebook group Breastfeeding Mama Talk, which has since gone viral.
She
also included a screengrab of a post from another unknown woman, who
called the two-year-old's play-breastfeeding 'the nastiest s*** of my
life' and said the mom should be 'punched in the damn face' for not
discouraging it.
How cute! An unknown mom shared images of her two-year-old daughter Charlotte pretending to breastfeed her doll
Just like mom! She said she was shopping when she heard her toddler talk about her 'baby' crying and wanting to eat
In
the original photos, a pigtailed two-year-old blonde girl named
Charlotte sits in the front of a shopping cart in a clothing store.
She
seems sweet and innocent as can be, looking down at the doll in her
hand as she lifts up her pink ruffled T-shirt and positions its head
somewhere in the vicinity of the center of her chest.
In the second photo, Charlotte is looking up as her mom takes the picture, smiling shyly as the doll 'breastfeeds'.
The
mom clearly thought the moment was cute and funny, and shared the
images online with the caption: 'You know you're a breastfeeding mother
when you look over in the middle of the store to your toddler saying,
"Baby cry, baby just wants eat..."
Unfortunately,
not everyone saw the image as simply showing a little girl pretending
to be a mommy and imitating her own mother's behavior.
One woman in particular, who seems to be from the south, took to Facebook to share a nasty rant about the pictures.
Play time: The little girl is clearly mimicking her own mother, doing something she sees as natural and innocent
Say what? Another Facebook user,
though, was disgusted by the photo and wrote some nasty things about the
little girl and her mother
'I
just saw some of the nastiest s*** of my life!!" she wrote. 'If you're
okay with your daughter lifting up her shirt and putting her baby dolls
mouth on her little "dots" pretending to breastfeed then I personally
think you need [to be] punched in the damn face!!!
'It's just simply not okay!!! Arguments welcome. I'm willing to shut y'all down today. [sic]'
The
original mother was, unsurprisingly, flabbergasted by the vitriol in
the stranger's post, and upset about the message she was sending.
'The
breastfeeding shaming starts before they even start really
breastfeeding!' the mom wrote in the Breastfeeding Mama Facebook group.
'I
am absolutely blown away,' she went on. 'Maybe it is the wording that
gets to me, the parts saying "it's the nastiest s*** of their life" and
"I need punched in the damn face" but I am shocked. What I first thought
to myself was, did she breastfeed?!'
The
mom added that she is still breastfeeding Charlotte, but she
formula-fed her five-year-old son Bentley — and she doesn't understand
how someone could see a toddler pretending to breastfeed a baby as a
toddler pretending to bottle-feed one.
Lifting the lid: A former porn star
going by the name S.K. reveals what is really like to work in the
industry during a candid interview on the latest episode of the Cosmo
Happy Hour podcast (file photo used)
A former
porn star has lifted the lid on what it was really like to go from from a
college student to adult entertainer as she reveals that the only
X-rated films she likes to watch with her partners are the ones she's
starred in.
The retired adult entertainer from Massachusetts, who goes by the pseudonym S.K., joined Cosmopolitan editors Elisa Benson and Ali Drucker for a candid discussion about women and porn on the latest episode of the Cosmo Happy Hour podcast, in which she dished about everything watching her adult films with her partners and the camaraderie on set.
'It
wasn't like I was desperate for money, so there was no need for me to
do anything I didn't feel like doing,' S.K. explains of her time in the
industry. 'I was really there to have a good time. [Porn] was more of a
passion project for me, so I really only did as much of it as I thought
would be fun.'
S.K.
says she has 'always had a little sex vixen waiting to be unleashed',
but before she got into porn, she was working as a webcam girl inside
the the dorm room of her New England liberal arts college.
'You could truly choose your own adventure, and I had a lot of props and costumes,' she says of her time as a webcamming.
S.K.
eventually developed a regular fan base and started looking into
another avenues of doing porn in on the East Coast before she headed to
Los Angeles, where she started doing improv comedy.
When
one of the women from her improvisation class revealed that a producer
asked her to take her shirt off and she refused, S.K. says she was
reminded of her interest in getting into the adult film industry.
After Googling the top porn agencies in Los Angeles, S.K. took a series of nude photos of herself and sent them off.
S.K. says she was soon contacted by former porn star Shy Love, who founded Adult Talent Managers.
I even found a literal niche for myself in Amish porn
During
their first meeting, she says Shy Love told her to get naked and noted
that she has 'five different shades of skin tone'.
'My tan was quite uneven at the time. I was like, "I'm sorry I'm from Boston,"' she recalls.
'You
need to get a tan. I want you three shades darker,' Shy Love told her
before giving her the name of a tanning place and hair stylist to start
her adult film makeover.
S.K. explains that the of the first things Shy Love told her was that she is 'very raw'.
'That
was actually part of my appeal,' she says looking back. 'I think that I
was all natural — I even found a literal niche for myself in Amish
porn. They really liked the whole natural look.'
S.K.
says she was so excited about the opportunity that she was almost open
to anything, however, she admits that when Shy Love asked her why she
wanted to get involved in the industry, she didn't have a really good
reason.
She
and Shy Love went through the porn scenarios she would be willing to
do, and the owner of the agency helped mentor S.K., explaining that she
should start off in 'masturbation' and 'girl on girl' and stay there as
long as she could.
'It
is all about novelty so that's why they get so excited when new girls
show up, but you really want to maximize your potential,' she explains.
'So you sort of make your rounds in each genre, but its like if you do
anal first it is like, "Oh, she has already done that."'
S.K.
says she had no problem getting naked during her go-sees with
production companies because it was something she genuinely wanted to
do.
'[If]
you are signing up to do porn, you have to expect that you are getting
naked and people are going to be looking at you in a sexual way,' she
explains. 'I think as long as you know what you are signing up for...
but I don't know if everyone sort of has the luxury I had, where it's
not like my rent was due.'
'I got a labiaplasty so I wanted to show that off,' she adds.
When
it comes to shooting, S.K. says you know you are going to be getting
'extremely intimate' with your co-stars, so 'you just really start
hitting it off right away'.
S.K.
says the guy starts 'courting you immediately' and is 'treating you
like this goddess', however, she admits that she has exchanged numbers
with some of the men, and she has regretted it.
'It
was always like a fun atmosphere,' she recalls. 'I always felt euphoric
after these shoots, and the other girls too I thought were lovely. Like
most people just really loved having sex, so they were usually happy to
be there I think. They seemed like it.'
Maybe it is a little sick and twisted, but I've had guys who want to watch my work
S.K.
says one of her favorite parts of shooting was actually the interview
section before the sex starts, however, she realized male fans had no
idea what she was talking about.
'Most
guys I would talk to would be like, "Wait what? I skipped over the at
least first 10 minutes." So they are just waiting for that money shot I
think.
And
similarly to the sex scenes featured in Hollywood blockbusters, S.K.
says camera men knew what angles to look for and would position her in
certain ways.
However, when asked what the most popular angles were, S.K. says 'p***y'.
'That
is really what it is focusing on [in hardcore porn],' she says, 'But
the softcore can't show the actual penetration, so you have to somehow
hide it.'
Eventually,
S.K. told her parents about her career in the adult film industry, and
she explains that their level-headed reactions made her gain even more
respect for her mother and father, who really focused on understanding
her decision and making sure she was being safe.
'I
think one particular woman really may have gotten a lot of pleasure
from being the one to bear the news to my mother, and I would have hated
that,' S.K. says of her mom finding out.
However,
when the woman in question called her mom and asked if she knew that
her daughter was doing porn, her mother had an incredible reaction.
'I
don't think she really knew the full extent of what I was doing at the
time, [but] she was like, "Why yes, yes I did. Goodbye now."'
After
working in the industry from the ages of 23 to 25, S.K. says she
decided to not renew her contract because it started to feel like work
and she knew it wasn't her 'true life calling', it was just something
she wanted to try.
'Personally, I don't watch very much porn,' she admits. 'Before trying it myself, I hadn't really watched much either.'
However, S.K. says she does like to watch her own work from time to time.
'Maybe
it is a little sick and twisted, but I've had guys who want to watch my
work while also being with me in the flesh,' she admits. 'And that's
always been kind of fun for me.'
S.K. also says that when she finally tells her suitors about her past they think it is really cool.
'They're like, "Whoa, I've never met a porn star before." It can make there life.'
Video: bree olson reveals what life is like after a career in porn
