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---Transcript---So one in five Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the age of 70. This means there are more people diagnosed with skin cancer in the US every year than all other types of cancers combined. But not you because you're listening to this, which means you care and your skin will be protected.  So the big question is this - What do people with great skin do differently to have that? How did they achieve a great look without using celebrity beauticians or spending a paycheck to re-stock their beauty cabinet? What are their mindsets, their approaches, their rituals, the products and tools they use? That is the question and as podcast will give you the answers. My name is Damyan Nikolov and welcome to Skincare Secrets.  Skin cancer is preventable with SPF and also the aging of the skin can be slowed down in a very significant way, with SPF as well. Fun fact about SPF: the first SPF was developed back in 1938 by a Swiss chemist. He developed it because he was experiencing, himself, burning when he was out in the mountains and the first product he developed had an SPF of 2. Imagine that. So SPF has come a long way between then and now. There are three things you should know before you go out and buy your next SPF moisturizer.  Number one - broad spectrum. So there are different types of sun rays. They carry different types of radiation. The two types that we care about are UVA and UVB. UVB causes burning and B stands for something else, but remember it as B for burning. They penetrate just the surface of the skin and they're responsible for causing cancer. UVA, the other types of rays, are responsible for aging. They penetrate deeper into the skin and cause a bunch of DNA damage etc., which over time causes aging. So dark spots, wrinkles, all that stuff is because of UVA. UVA accounts for 95 percent of the UV radiation that reaches the earth on any given day. And when you're SPF product says broad spectrum somewhere on the front of the bottle it means it offers protection against both UVA and UVB. So number one - broad spectrum should be on the bottle.  Number two - SPF number 30 or better. What does SPF mean? First of all SPF stands for sun protection factor. The SPF framework, which is guided by the FDA, reflects the amount of protection you get from UVB so the amount of protection you get with respect to burning and cancer because that's what the FDA is concerned about. Because cancer is a disease and aging is not.  So SPF 30 means 1/30 of the UVB radiation actually hits your skin. So that's about 3 percent, which means you get about 97 percent protection when you use an SPF 30 product. When you go from 30 to 50, 1/50 of the radiation hits your skin which is about 2 percent. So you go from 97 percent to 98 percent protection so you get only 1 percent incremental benefit. And if you have to pay 30 to 50 percent more for the higher SPF factor then maybe it's not worth it, maybe you should think about applying the product more often so you get the protection that way. And how about if you use SPF 15? Well that means about 6 percent of the UVB penetrates the SPF protection so you 94 percent coverage basically. So either way I think those numbers are within such close proximity that it becomes a lot more important whether you put SPF or not and how often you apply it as opposed to whether you use SPF 30 or SPF 50.  Number three - mixed UV filters. There are two types of ingredients that actually give you the SPF protection - physical and chemical. And by chemical I don't mean bad chemical that's just how they're referred to in the cosmetic industry. So the physical ingredients are zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. You can just remember zinc and titanium, that's plenty. Those type of ingredients, they generally sit on top of the skin when you apply a product and they reflect the sunlight. So it bounces off and then deflects, it doesn't penetrate the skin at all.  The other type, which is the chemical actives, are things that you can't pronounce - Avobenzone, Octocrylene etc., etc. Those types of ingredients penetrate inside the skin, they actually absorb the sunlight and they convert into heat which then the body gets rid of. So when you hear this advice that you should put your SPF 20 30 minutes before you go out on the sun it is to allow the chemical actives to actually penetrate the skin so they can start doing their job. I personally prefer SPF moisturizers that have both physical and chemical UV filters because I feel I'd want to get both kinds of protection. So mixed UV filters is number three.  And before we conclude, I wanted to address some common questions that I hear a lot that people ask me, with respect to SPF. First one is - does it prevent you skin from making Vitamin D? And the short answer is not really. You should not be worried about this, unless you're wearing SPF product that's half an inch thick and there's no there's no sunlight penetrating through it. Your skin still produces plenty of vitamin D when it's exposed to the sun. The next question I get a lot is - Can I and should I still be going to tanning salons if I use SPF? And the answer is - In my opinion, you should avoid tanning salons at all cost.  Tanning beds primarily emit UVA, the types of radiation that's responsible for the aging of the skin. And they actually are ten to twelve times stronger than the UVA that you get when you are exposed to sun. So tanning beds accelerate aging in a major, major way. So stay away from those. Next question I get a lot is - Should I be applying SPF in the winter, I live in New York or Chicago or Boston or Seattle? It's rainy. There's no sun. And the answer is absolutely, because even on the coldest day at least 40 percent of the sun's radiation still hits your skin through the clouds and the temperature is not relevant when it comes to sun radiation. So keep all those things in mind before you go shopping for your next SPF moisturizer. I hope all this stuff is helpful. Please, don't forget to subscribe and I will see you next time.