icon-account icon-glass

Popular Searches

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.

CATEGORIES

Are You Using The Correct Sun Cream? Here’s How To Up Your SPF Game

15th September 2021

Health Life

15th September 2021

By Beth Shelper

You may be thinking… it’s September. Why are you talking about SPF, Innermost? Well, what you might not know, is that you should be using and applying SPF every single day. Not just in the summer months! Yes, really.

That means that we need to make sure that you’re using the correct SPF when it comes to key ingredients and ratings so that you know which sun cream is best for your skin, what SPF is best, and how to apply sun cream effectively to keep your skin’s health in tip-top condition (and stop the aging process where we can).

Psst… another way you can do this is by integrating The Recover Capsules into your daily routine due to it’s Vitamin D content, but that’s a whole different story.

Back to sun cream…

What do the SPF numbers mean?

Sun Protection Factor (more commonly referred to as SPF), refers to the protection that a sun cream or skincare product offers against the sun’s harmful UVA and UVB rays, with the aim of preventing skin damage such as aging and sunburn.

SPF numbers such as SPF 5, SPF10, SPF 30 and so on, instruct customers in a number of ways. Whilst when shopping for an SPF before your holiday, you may always opt for a certain SPF based on the belief that if you burn ‘easier’ you need a higher SPF, or that a lower SPF will offer you a lower level of protection, this isn’t strictly the case, and definitely isn’t what SPF numbers refer to.

Quite simply, SPF numbers tell you how long the product will offer you protection from the sun’s UV rays for. For example, if you are sitting out in the midday sun on your latest getaway with SPF 30 protection on your skin, it will take the sun thirty minutes to redden (or damage) your skin vs no SPF protection at all.

Whilst of course, this isn’t on a timer, SPF numbers offer approximate timings that allow users to monitor their sun exposure, sun cream application and potential exposure to skin damage caused by UVA and UVB rays.

UVA vs UVB rays

We mentioned UVA and UVB rays a couple of times above, so it’s probably important that we clarify the difference.

UVA rays refer to Ultra Violet-A rays, which are longer in their wavelength in comparison to UVB rays. Prolonged exposure to UVA rays can lead to skin damage that relates to aging, including wrinkles. And nobody wants those.

UVB rays, on the other hand, refer to Ultraviolet-B rays. These rays are much shorter in wavelength and prolonged exposure to these rays can lead to skin damage such as burning, and more seriously, skin cancers.

So, it goes without saying that it’s important to take adequate care and precautions against these. It’s all about finding the correct balance between getting enough sun due to the benefits of Vitamin D such as increased mood, better skin and energy boosts, and avoiding sun damage as much as possible.

That’s where a quality SPF comes in handy… but you must ensure you’re applying it correctly. And often. That’s non-negotiable.

How to apply sun cream effectively

It’s all well and good applying your sun cream at the start of the day, but that’s not quite going to cut it. You need to ensure that you’re applying your skincare every two hours or after perspiring and/or swimming.

Does sun cream expire?

Yes! Just like all beauty and wellness products, sun creams do expire. So, if you can’t remember the last time you picked up a new SPF, it’s probably a good sign to chuck your current one in the bin and get to the shops. As if you needed another excuse to go shopping, right?

Sun cream ingredients to avoid

When you’re on the hunt for your next sun cream favourite, take a look at the ingredients and ensure your next pick doesn’t include any of the below…

  • Oxybenzone
  • Octinoxate
  • Nanoparticles
  • Homosalate

Innermost’s SPF favourites

Summary

When it comes to staying healthy, skincare is absolutely a part of that. Make sure to include an SPF into your daily skincare routine, whether that is one of the above recommended products or otherwise.

It’s always a good idea to take a look at your current skincare products, too! Many include their own SPF, which is always a bonus.

< Older post Newer post >

Product Spotlight

The Recover Capsules. These nootropic capsules contain research-backed ingredients that support the recovery process, reduce inflammation, and regulate hormone activity.

The Recover Capsules
Our daily capsules to help speed up physical and mental recovery, reduce inflammation and regulate optimal hormone activity. Start your Innermost journey today.
Team Favourite

Need Expert Advice?

Take the quiz

Take the quiz

If you're not sure where to start, take our 5 minute health consultation to get product recommendations tailored to your goals.
Read more

Other Insights

What Happened To My Training Over Summer (Honestly)

What Happened To My Training Over Summer (Honestly)

I did not train well this summer. A holiday to spend time with my family, a run of work trips, a couple of injuries I was trying to cope with (left shoulder and right forearm for those who are interested). If you'd asked me in June how consistent I'd be over the summer, I'd have said very. I was wrong. Most people quietly assume the founder of a wellness brand has this figured out. The truth is I run a brand, I try to have a life outside it, and summer is the season where routine goes to die for almost everyone I know. I don't think that's a personal failing. I think it's just what a normal year looks like. What I want to talk about is what actually happens to your body when this happens, because the research here is more reassuring than you might expect. What detraining research actually shows There's a real body of science on this. Strength and cardiovascular fitness don't decline at the same rate, and they don't decline anywhere near as fast as people fear. Cardiovascular fitness is the first thing to soften. Your VO2 max starts drifting down within a couple of weeks of stopping structured training, because your heart and blood vessels adapt to demand quickly in both directions. Strength is a different story. Studies that track people through a few weeks off training consistently find that measurable strength loss is small, often barely noticeable, for the first three to four weeks. The muscle itself takes even longer to shrink in any meaningful way. Several studies looking specifically at detraining periods found that visible loss of muscle protein and structure often doesn't show up until somewhere between five and eight months without any training at all. A summer of patchy sessions is nowhere near that. The reassuring partThe part I find genuinely reassuring is what's called muscle memory, and it's not just a phrase people use to feel better about a break. When you train, your muscle cells add nuclei, essentially more control centres for building protein. Research shows those nuclei stick around for months after you stop training, well past the point where the muscle itself has started to shrink. When you come back, you're not starting from zero. You're reactivating machinery that never actually left. That's a large part of why people who return to training after a long break tend to regain lost strength and size far faster than it took to build in the first place, often within four to eight weeks depending on how long the layoff was. Some of you might remember this happening post-Covid. So if you had a summer like mine, the honest scientific answer is that you probably lost less than it feels like, and you'll get it back faster than you think. What I'm actually doing this month Nothing dramatic. I'm not doing a reset week or a punishing comeback programme. I'm just going back to five structured sessions a week, prioritising the compound lifts I know well, and being honest that the first couple of sessions will feel harder than they did in June.  Don’t forget your proteinThe other thing I'm paying more attention to is protein, simply because it's the one lever that makes the rebuilding phase more efficient. Adequate protein intake supports the muscle protein synthesis that's doing the actual work of restoring what softened over summer. I've been leaning on The Health Protein for this. It's plant-based, built around pea and brown rice protein for a full amino acid profile, with glutamine in there to support recovery. If you'd rather stick with a whey based option, that's a completely reasonable choice too, and The Strong Protein remains built for exactly that. If you had a messy summer, you're not behind. You're just at the start of a normal, unremarkable return to routine, and the research says that's a far shorter road back than most people assume. Forward this to anyonre you know who is dreading their first session back. I'd genuinely like to know what generally works for you post-summer. Structured plan, just showing up once, anything. Reply and tell me. Even if it’s a one-liner, I’d love to hear from you.
Read more
The Glow Blend: A Confession

The Glow Blend: A Confession

I need to tell you something I've never said publicly, and it's not flattering. When our product team first brought me a plan for a collagen supplement, my honest reaction was no. Not "let me think about it." A flat no. And if I'm being fully honest about why, it wasn't the science. It was that collagen felt, in my head, like a beauty category. Something for someone else's brand. Not ours. I built Innermost around performance and evidence. Protein, creatine, mushrooms, electrolytes. Things I could point to a study for and feel comfortable talking about at a dinner table full of people who workout regularly. Collagen sat in a different mental folder. Skincare aisle. Jars with gold lids and brand sponsorship by one of the Kardashians. I'd absorbed a version of what "beauty" meant without ever examining it. The argument in the room So we had the argument internally. A proper one. A few people on the team pushed back hard, and rightly so. One of them put it to me plainly: we started Innermost to follow the evidence wherever it goes, not to follow it everywhere except the places that feel awkward. That line stuck with me. Here's what changed my mind, and it wasn't a feeling. It was the research. What the evidence actually says Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's structural, it's in your skin, your joints, your gut lining, and production declines steadily from your mid-twenties onward. That's not a marketing claim, that's basic physiology. The question was never whether collagen matters. It was whether supplementing it actually does anything, and that's where most of the category falls apart. Most collagen products on the market use whole collagen molecules, which are too large to be absorbed effectively when you drink them. The ones that do use hydrolysed peptides, which are broken down into smaller chains your body can actually take up, still run into a second problem: dose. A lot of labels list collagen content that sits well below the 2 to 10 grams used in the trials that show measurable effects on skin elasticity and hydration. You're paying for a placebo with good branding. The ingredient most brands leave out The third problem is the one that convinced me completely. Vitamin C isn't a nice-to-have alongside collagen. It's a required co-factor for your body to actually synthesise collagen at the cellular level. Without adequate vitamin C, the enzymes responsible for stabilising collagen structure don't function properly. You can take a perfectly dosed hydrolysed peptide and still get a fraction of the benefit if the product doesn't include enough vitamin C alongside it. Most don't. They sell you the raw material and leave out the one thing your body needs to use it. Once I saw the category clearly, laid out like that, the decision stopped being about how I felt and started being about what the evidence supported. That's the whole operating principle of Innermost. I couldn't defend saying no to a legitimate, well-evidenced product category. What we built So we built The Glow Blend properly. Hydrolysed collagen peptides at a dose that reflects the research, alongside vitamin C, hyaluronic acid for hydration, biotin and folic acid for hair and nail health. Nothing in it that doesn't earn its place. What surprised me after launch The part I didn't expect was the response once we launched it. A good number of the messages came from women, as you'd expect, and they were generous and specific about what they'd noticed. But a surprising number came from men. Customers writing in to say they'd felt exactly what I'd felt, that awkward little flinch at "collagen," and had quietly bought it anyway because the ingredient breakdown made sense to them. That response told me more about why this category needed an honest voice in it than any research paper did. I'm not going to pretend I have this fully figured out. I still catch myself, occasionally, hesitating slightly before I mention it in a room. Old habits sit deeper than good evidence sometimes. But I take it, and increasingly a lot of men I respect take it too, quietly, without needing to make a thing of it. If this sounds familiar If any part of this resonated, and you've felt that same small resistance to a category you assumed wasn't for you, hit reply and tell me. I'd genuinely like to know I'm not the only one who had to get over it. And if you know someone, a friend, a partner, who could use this exact reasoning rather than a tesimonial, forward it on. It might do more good coming from someone else's honesty.
Read more