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natural beauty
healthy healing sun
goldilocks sunshine – not too much,
not too little, just right
we need sun!
I believe that sun is indeed nutritious. Most allopathic medicine preaches fear of the sun – but we need it to live! Sunny weather goes hand in hand with good spirits – and we require sunlight to assimilate vitamin D, a valuable cofactor to many nutrients (including calcium) and a happy, healthy system. Early morning and late-afternoon sun is gentle and nourishing. Be mindful – midday sun is strong and damaging.
valid concerns about sun exposure:
Our ozone layer is depleting, resulting in a loss of precious natural protection from the sun.
Toxins trying to escape through sweat +
petroleum based skin products (which act as a seal) =
trouble (ie: toxins cooking back into the system)
personal brush
with Basal Cell Cancer
I have been living in Hawaii for more than a decade and love the sun. I have never been foolish about it – I am a flaxen-locked, fair-eyed gal – and always chose to cover up with a hat or shirt over slathering myself with sunscreen. My mom slathered me in sunscreen as a kid- though as an adult with naturalistic ideals, for years I rarely, if ever, used it.
As a practitioner of preventative medicine, I go to a skin doctor annually as a precaution to check my figure head-to-toe.
A while ago, on a routine check-up, my doc found a pearly-smooth spot, half the size of a pencil eraser on my nose and said it looked pre-cancerous. Pre-cancerous! My nose! I was freaking out; I regularly check my body for spots, but never looked for light-colored ones, only dark ones. He had a lab biopsy it and I answered a dreadful phone call a few days later – indeed it was Basal Cell Carcinoma. Ugh. I was devastated. It was a terrible feeling to join the statistics (while counting my blessings that it was not melanoma):
1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in her life!
I was fortunate enough to have a connection to the Head Honcho of the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah and was able to go on my way to see the Dalai Lama, who officiatethe marriage of my husband and I,
in Sun Valley, Idaho a few weeks later. They scraped and tested, scraped and tested till it was gone – a minor procedure that I cried buckets through. It was incredibly emotional and difficult to be awake, through not the least of my concerns that I would end up like Scar-Face. Fortunately, it went about as well as it could go; we caught it early and the initial biopsy got most of it. A plastic surgeon stitched me with care and a few weeks later it was barely detectable. I send a deep thank-you to all compassionate doctors of modern medicine.
Basal Cell damage is done at least 10 years before it shows up – 90% of cases are on the nose and face, where skin is thin and delicate and sun exposure is at its maximum. Recurrence is high if prevention is ignored, but it is non-invasive as opposed to melanoma, which is vicious.
So! Whereas I used to just where a hat and be casually cautious, now I wear sunscreen (at least on my face, neck and chest) whenever I am in the sun. I learned my lesson – I like my face and would like to keep it. Of course, I have done a lot of research on sunscreen and always choose pure, natural products. I hope sharing this with you – which is humbling and difficult – will encourage you to be smart with protective and preventative measures.
Get your skin looked at annually and listen to your mother who hopefully told you to wear sunscreen.
I highly recommend: Skin Ceuticals- Ultimate UV Defense SPF 30
www.skinceuticals.com
Their sunscreen products offer true, broad-spectrum UVA-UVB protection. They contain a patented transparent zinc oxide – so you don’t look like a frosted lifeguard. The effective ingredients are encapsulated – and therefore more effective because your skin doesn’t absorb them. They are PABA-free, oil-free, fragrance-free, and suitable for all skin types and make your skin feel soft and dewy, not greasy, oily and sealed.
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