But I am mighty!!

mate it's £5-10 for a 200ml bottle I'd hardly call that cheap

In the city of Utrecht NL they have free sunblock stations spread around the city. It shows the temp and UV rating. But buying it in store is crazy expensive and often the quality is poor. Some fancy tiny spray bottles go up to 12 euros, only good for 3 to 4 uses. wtf. Imagine being ginger, there's a ginger tax called sunblock.
- As a ginger- the petrol money to go shop in Germany at DM or Rossmann is cheaper than the ginger tax here.
- Then don't buy the fancy spray bottles, but the big one that lasts for a year or three?
WTF are those prices. I'd start looking into importing from abroad ...
- Cost of living in the UK is up 25% since Brexit happened in 2021.
  "We've become the first country in the history of the world to have placed economic sanctions upon itself" -James O'Brien
  We're a population of morons who will still blame anything but ourselves for the position we're in.
- Here in the Netherlands it’s expensive as well. Like a small bottle of name-brand sunscreen is €30.
I buy the store brand from the local supermarket. €2,99 for a 250 ml bottle of SPF 30 and it works great. I never get sunburn, even during multi hour bike rides in the blazing sun.
I have autistic sensory issues and the cheapest one I can at all tolerate to have on my skin is 15€ for 50ml. I have so many of the 5-10€ bottles at home and can't handle any of them. Fml

Cheap is not the case everywhere. In Germany it's cheap, in the Netherlands it's much more expensive and in Croatia a bottle is like 25 Euro

In the US it's cheap but unregulated and full of shit that's terrible for you. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for stuff that's better but still not up to the standards of most other countries. I learned this by getting a chemical burn in my eye from sunscreen... meant for my face.
- In the US it's cheap but unregulated
  It’s the exact opposite actually.
  US sunscreen is way worse than sunscreen in other parts of the world like the EU. It doesn’t block the harmful radiation as well. The reason is that it’s more strictly regulated in the US. IIRC it’s not considered a cosmetic product but instead it’s a medical product.
  As such it’s subject to much stricter regulation and requires much more (expensive) testing before being allowed on the market. Due to this it’s considered too expensive to introduce the newer, more advanced sunscreen products in the US so you’re stuck with the older, crappier sunscreen.
- Oh, that's bad. Made me think of this sunscreen and in Robocop 2.
- The USA is the Wild West when it comes to safety standards of any product.
I was in Berlin last month and spent €16.50 for a 50ml bottle
- Weird. In NRW you can get them at DM for less than 10 Euro.
- I guess you went to the wrong shop then. In pharmacies or shops open at crazy hours this might be true. We usually buy all products for Hygiene and beauty in shops we call "Drogerie". The most common two chains are Rossmann and DM. There you get sun screen for 3-15€ from various Brands.

Clearly you've never met someone like my wife.

"ball of fire"

Haha, no no. You threw down with a gigantic source of cell destroying radiation. The fire did no harm.

There's no fire in the sun. Fire is some material oxidizing, and that's not what's happening (or at least not in relevant amounts). What creates the radiation is nuclear fusion.
- https://youtu.be/sLkGSV9WDMA
Hypothetically speaking, will you get sunburnt if you sit near a fire all day?
- The heat could dry out your skin, which, if I'm not mistaken, is essentially what a burn is. However, as the other person noted, a sunburn is damage from radiation, not heat. So I think you could stretch the common definition of a burn to call heat induced dry skin a burn but calling it a sunburn would not be accurate.
- Maybe! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythema_ab_igne
A ball of constant unending nuclear explosion
Why exactly do you think there is UV radiation coming from the sun?
- Because the spectrometer says so, mainly. Why?
- Assuming this is a sincere question:
  The sun emits a wide spectrum of radiation due to the nuclear fusion reactions occurring within it's core. This includes everything from low energy non-visible radio waves and thermal radiation to high energy X-rays and gamma rays. Fortunately for us, the Earth's electromagnetic field and atmosphere (especially the ozone layer) protects us from all but a tiny sliver of ionizing radiation or we wouldn't be here to talk about it.
  Also, hello again AES_Enjoyer, hope you've been well :)

So let me tell y'all about the crazies I work with. I burn easily, and there is very little shade, so I store sunscreen everywhere. My desk, the bathroom, my bag, the car, the office supply closet, etc. I often use it and offer to my colleagues when anyone needs to go out for a while.

We got a new guy on the team, he's going out, I suggest he take some sunscreen. He tells me that sunscreen is poison and that you don't really need it as long as you don't wear sunglasses. He tells me that it's wearing sunglasses that actually causes you to burn because your eyes don't get as much sun so your brain doesn't send the right chemicals out to protect your skin.

Sometimes I think I've heard all the batshit nonsense. Other times I read something like this.
- I have a running list of shit I've heard from this guy. I'm positive it's something from Alex Jones or similar.
So blind people never get sunburn? Or always get sunburn?
- Idk. He said his wife still demands sunscreen for their children, so I'll let him fry himself in peace.
Yeah I've seen an upsurge of people claiming sunscreen is toxic poison. Not sure where the fuck they pulled that from
- Maybe this?
  https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html
  Seems bad for coral.
- Everything that will kill you A to Z.
  S is for sunscreen, but also the sun. Both give you cancer, isn’t that fun.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPz9Fcvb1II
- Maybe they read something about the titanium dioxide contained in some sunscreen products. There is some research indicating that its not as safe as we thought and that it might be carcinogenic.

Every English tourist in Australia.

...and Florida, and Jamaica, and Mexico, and (I presume) Spain. There is no corner of the earth in which the English will not challenge the mighty Helios until they are as red as the cross of St. George.
- *Me in Vitoria, Spain: "You guys get sun?"
  Large parts of the north of Spain are basically UK in terms of weather.
Australia is a different beast though. I went out for like 10 minutes without a hat or sunscreen on a particularly hot december noon and my nose damn near fell off the day after 😅 Not because I thought I'm too tough to get sunburnt but if you live your entire life in Europe you just can't imagine the sunshine being this potent. Never happened again after that incident 😄
In New Zealand the sun feels like it's stabbing you after 10min in summer. I can feel my skin prickling like tiny fire ants.It doesn't take long to burn here. serious respect for the sun and upper atmosphere
there's a hole in my ozone dear lyza, dear lyza..
- Its not the ozon hole (well its a little bit the fault of the ozon hole) but its because due to the eleptical orbit of the earth around the sun the southern hemisphere is closer to the sun in summer than the north hemisphere.

I'm just stayin inside

Ok Bo Burnham
- but they're specifically avoiding burning their hams
- Went out to look for a reason to hide again

On the other hand, what bullshit is it that my stupid human body can't survive being outdoors without medicinal cream. My ancestors would be ashamed.

Mud and henna masks and other full skin coverings are extremely common among indigenous people and presumably your ancestors as well.
- We also used to have much more hair, shadowing the skin from sun
Your ancestors had melanin production to fit their sun exposure and seldom lived past 40
- Maybe tens of thousands of years ago, but 2000ish years ago 60ish was old age. The main reason life expectancy has gone up isn't that old people didn't make it to 50, it's that young people didn't make it to 2. If a couple has 5 kids, 3 of them die as toddlers and the other two make it to 70 the average life expectancy is about 30, but that doesn't mean living past 30 is unusual.
  Also, tens of thousands of years ago there was an ice age, but for the last 10k years light-skinned Europeans still had normal summers and worked in the fields.
Your ancestors didn't shave
- I don't either, but my nose isn't hairy and it would burn to a crisp outdoors.

as a man I have the primal urge to pick a fight with the giant ball of fire in the sky, I lost this time but one day.

Let me let you in on a little secret...you gotta attack at night.
- Unfortunately I've already committed to it happening one DAY.

Not wearing sunscreen and getting a sunburn is a psyop to get men to buy more aloe vera.

Which, btw, might feel kind of nice, but you'll still get skin cancer.
- You got to give props to the people who convinced idiots that sunscreen causes cancer.
Put that shit in the refrigerator, it's awesome.

If the cream wasn't such a goddamn sensory nightmare...
UPF clothes FTW

I would wear suncream more often, but:

I'm allergic to something in most brands of suncream so if I run out I'm having to deal with rashes all over where I used it.
I hate how it makes me feel slimy after using it

There's this Loreal suncream spray I like that I can't seem to find that feels like water and when it's dry, it doesn't feel like you have suncream on. It's perfect for me! I'm not allergic to it either so I can actually go in the sun without turning red and blotchy!

Yeah, and it’s also def NOT cheap.
that feels like water and when it's dry,
What does water feel like when it's dry?
- New question for the "water isn't wet" fools unlocked.
- Key word being "and".
- only one way to find out

It's actually irritating to me that the sun is bombarding us with ionizing radiation

(I know, not the same intensity) but think about the amount of precautions we take before turning on a UV lamp. Or before turning on a very bright LED which you are not supposed to look directly at. Well, neither you should look directly at the sun, but you get the idea

In a perspective, sun is so radioactive it can even decay paint and plastic! It can literally cook you alive and make your skin fall in pieces. This just seems usual to us because we were born with it, people would freak the hell out if a medical procedure had the same side effects

Look, I can make a right wing campaign out of this! BAN THE SUN SAVE YOUR KIDS FROM 800T (Terahertz) RADIATION

I'm sure you could get signatures as long as you don't use the word sun, similar to that ban dihydrogen monoxide bit. Take video.
It’s actually irritating to me that the sun is bombarding us with ionizing radiation
Yeah, it's called a sunburn!

i get burnt with multiple layers of sun lotion

If you spend 8 hours in the sun, the sunscreen doesn't seem like it helps entirely.

Reapply q2 hours and every time you use a towel. I don't think most sunscreen is advertising all day Protection.
- I mean of course, I'm saying even adding more periodically. Just feels like always some gets through

be me
white as everliving fuck
put on 60 spf sun screen, as you should, and set a timer for an hour and a half to reapply, earlier than the recommended 2 hours
alarm goes off, reapply
STILL GET SUNBURNED

mfw

I used to have that problem. I switched to 30 spf and don't get burned anymore. I can't really explain it, but my theory is that 50+ is marketing BS and doesn't actually do anything. Or it could be that Banana Boat brand just really sucks and Hawaiian is more like lotion so it actually stays on my skin and also moisturizes, which probably helps because dry skin = gonna get burned.
Lotion is good for the first coat, but the spray is so much easier to apply when you're already sweaty and sand is everywhere.
Get 100 spf, I've never even tanned on that shit.
- The difference between SPF 60 and 100 is like 1.1% better UV blocking, anything over SPF 50 is in a practical sense nearly useless.
  For instance SPF 30 blocks 97% of UVB rays, is it worth paying more and slathering more potentially harmful (to the environment) compounds on your skin for 98% blocking? I think not.
- I have never in my life seen anything seen anything higher than 50+
I once somehow got sunburned while inside my bedroom

If you hate the feel of sunscreen like I do, check out UPF clothing 👍

My excuse is that the weather was predicted as "cloudy" when we left in the morning. When we were on the trip, though, the sun was burning down to extinct humanity instead.

You should be putting sunscreen on regardless, and reapplying every 3 hours.

But it's gross :C

(summer sunshine is also gross even without sunburns, though)

Cancer or disgust, we all have to choose our preferred consequences.
- Or just don't go into the sun if you can help it ...

My wife can spend all day in the sun and turn a nice shade of brown.

Not me. There is no "tan" for me. It's either pasty white or lobster with no middle ground whatsoever.

I turn a lovely tan. It just happens after two weeks of bright red and screamy and a few days of pale and peeling.

The worst is when is a cloudy Summer day and you're like there's no sun mf, no need to sunscreen! But you still get burned the fuck out.

I put on sun screen every morning to ward off basal cell skin cancer. It sucks but it's cheaper than going to the dermatologist to have basal cell skin cancer removed. The worst part is getting it in my eyes. On the plus side, the splotchy age spots on my temples have disappeared

Pour one out for the back of my calves. Every summer I forget.

Incredibly, my legs somehow never get burnt
- Same until I got a bicycle

Mate. I'm a ginger living in New Zealand. Sunburn is an inevitability.

You choose new Zeeland over Australia due to the lack of venomous animals, but forgot to check for unprotected astronomical nuclear reactor in the sky
- Melanoma is the New Zealand flavor of poison damage
Me too. Get burnt from a sunny day at the movies

I don't remember it being cheap

Baking in the sun risks skin cancer. But people like to be tanned, so cancer is worth it for a good look.

I get a little pink from being outside for like ~20 minutes. That's not really hubris lol.

And then theres me who does not go outside that often, never uses suncream and doesnt get a sunburn when I decide to go outside for longer times.

One day I'll win, you all will see!

Fallen London vibes

@bees There have been some recent studies that have solidified the relationship between autism and the MMR vaccine in particular. Gates live Polio vaccine has killed around 500,000 Africans, who knows how many it's maimed, and not to say Polio isn't worth vaccinating against, I have friends who were partially parallelized by it, but if you're killing 500,000 people something is wrong, and one of my children got heart issues after covid vax, further, he at 40 had two vaccines, damage done on the second, had three incidents of covid and the third involved a 102.9 fever, I by contrast got no covid vax, got covid twice, both times it was your average head cold, and the highest fever I had was 99.1, never went down into my lungs, same for my wife and my other son who did not get vaccinated. Vaccines are immensely profitable to the pharmaceutical industry, and just like profit in the military complex keeps wars going even if it means killing and maiming people, so to the pharma profits force unnecessary and dangerous medical interventions.

This is my exact situation right now.

@bees Actually the UV creams have shown to be themselves carcinogenic, so it's not about to have cancer or not, but how to get it. All things in moderation, including sun, your body does need vitamin d3 which it produces in the presence of UV.

Actually the UV creams have shown to be themselves carcinogenic
And vaccines cause autism \s
- @Railcar8095 With respect to vaccines and autism, there is a correlation but as the old saying goes casuality is not causality until it is. In my view it warrants research. And I've got no doubt that the number of vaccines they are giving toddlers and children these days is overloading their immune systems.
Oh FFS this isn't the benzene thing again, is it? Benzene is a trace contaminant in everything from the air you breathe to the water you drink. The highest number Valisure came up with was 6 ppm in a sunscreen sample, that's 0.0006%. Even if you decided to inject the whole bottle of sunscreen directly into your veins it would be a fraction of your total exposure for the day.
Using people's fear of cancer to scare them away from effective cancer prevention measures is fucking shameful, do better.
- @GingerGoodness Benzene in trace amount is an issue, but also Oxybenzone: Some studies suggest it may be an endocrine disruptor, meaning it could interfere with hormones, and research in animals has raised questions about potential cancer risk, but it's important to note these were high-dose studies not directly relevant to typical human use. Other UV Filters: Ingredients like octinoxate and homosalate have also raised concerns about potential endocrine disruption, and some are banned in certain regions due to their impact on marine life
  Look, if you want to smear yourself with chemicals, inject yourself with artificial DNA, etc, go for it, just don't require it of me and my offspring.
Can you actually avoid vitamin d production if you stay long enough in the sun that you need sunscreen to avoid sunburns?
- @rumschlumpel I live close to Seattle. If we're lucky here there might be three days in the year where you can get sunburn.