Jennifer Garner is doing interviews to promote her role as Neutrogena spokesperson, which she’s had for years now. The last time we covered her doing promotion for the brand was in March, 2013. So she’s skilled at meting out the publicity and isn’t bombarding us with interviews plugging the line. Garner is talking about sunscreen and skin health, which she did a year ago too. Garner’s gig with Neutrogena dovetails nicely with her public image as approachable hands-on mom. Here’s what she said, and the video is above:
Nobody my age wore sunscreen as a little kid. We all just were tossed into the sun like wolves and grew up way too brown. We used to just burn, burn, burn until we were brown enough to not burn anymore the whole summer. Now it just kills me to think what we did to all that beautiful little baby skin. My dad’s a sailor and we spent a lot of time in the summer in the boat, on our family’s little 23 foot boat on the Chesapeake Bay and we would go onto it for three weeks at a time. And I remember… baking on the side of the boat and being as dark brown. Now I realized how fair I am. I had no right to be that brown.
It takes a very steady hand to put sunscreen on three kids. I don’t know any kids who like to have sunscreen put on them. It has to kind of be a non-negotiable. I had one kid get a sunburn on the back of her neck. We were at the beach where my husband was filming something. Her skin started to peel and believe it or not, even though I grew up peeling, I panicked. I thought she had a fungus or something. I took her to the doctor and the doctor was like ‘it’s a sunburn,’ and I thought ‘well, ok, if this is the first time that this has happened…’ I felt like an idiot, because even one sunburn increases your kid’s risk of getting skin cancer later in life. You kind of have to just be so, so diligent.
I disagree with Garner. I’m right around her age (she’s slightly older than I am) and my mom put sunscreen on me all the time when I was a kid. I had a couple of horrible burns when we went on outings unprepared, but that only happened twice. Other than that my mom slathered me with sunscreen, as I do with my kid now. We’re all fair skinned and we can be easily burned. My mom grew up near the beach, though, and she learned from her childhood (when truly there was no sunscreen) that it’s painful and bad for you to burn.
As for Garner’s story, I like that she’s talking about the importance of sunscreen instead of espousing on how great her skin is now that she uses Neutrogena. Plus, they make good products. I use their dry touch sunscreen because it was on sale at my local drugstore. I am just as likely to buy a store brand knockoff though.
Jennifer Garner is shown out with her kids on 5-3, 5-4 and 5-22. She’s also shown at the Draft Day premiere on 4-7. Credit: FameFlynet and WENN
You must have had a smarter mother than mine. I would lay out on my trampoline with baby oil all over me and my mom never said one word.
Now I have a fair skinned, blue eye, red hair 2 year old. I always cover her in sunscreen.
Same with me, minus the baby oil thing lol. I’m roughly the same age as Jen and though my mom would definitely put sunscreen on me if I was out for a long time (like at a pool party or something like that) it wasn’t something that automatically happened every time I went out in the sun. Maybe it’s because we’re Arab so we sort of felt like the sun wouldn’t hurt us as much, I don’t know. 😛
Nowadays we thankfully know better and I always use a sunscreen if I’m outside for any length of time.
Same here. My sisters and I grew up in south Florida and we were always in swimming pools and at the beach. I do remember initial sunscreen applications but it was not reapplied for the most part. We used to stay out for hours and hours and were all brown as can be and no one ever said a word. It was pretty normal so I can totally relate to what shes saying. Now of course I know better and use a high SPF. I do see sunspots on my face though 🙁 Anyone have any good recommendations for a skin lightening cream. I was even thinking about glycolic peels….
Retin-a, girl. That stuff is a miracle. I am of Scandinavian decent, and a life long Floridian. Sun spots started popping up in my early 20’s, but since I have been diligent with the retin-a and a glycolic wash called MD Forte they have faded. You really have to stay on top of the sunscreen, though, when using these products. HTH!
Add me to the no sunscreen list. I grew up in Arizona and have very fair skin but I would swim all summer long with no sunscreen at all and got quite a few sunburns. Now I use sunscreen on myself and my son who thankfully has not had any sunburns.
I have a blue eyed, red haired, white as snow 3 year old. I sunscreen him every single day before he leaves for daycare, just in case. I grew up with skin as white as snow, and to this day, I hit the beach in hat, 70 block, and a full coverage cover up, just to be safe. Thank heavens for St. Tropez or I would be modern day Snow White year round.
I totally laid out on the tramp with absolutely no protection in high school and I am paying for it now! I look back at pictures of me before high school when I used to sit in my basement with my girlfriends all summer and I had awesome Nicole Kidman porcelain skin. It makes me so mad that I did this to my self and now at age 32 I have crows feet and age spots all over. My parents never really wore sunscreen, my mom is Mexican though and her and my sister always got really dark and my dad, whose fair skin I have, just didn’t care. My husband who I started dating when I was 16 also has really dark skin so I was always trying to keep up with them. Ugh, why did I want to be tan so bad! My one year old son has strawberry blonde hair and is so fair he glows. I will lather him up until he goes to college!
My mom is also Mexican and I got my father’s side’s freckled, white, Irish skin and red hair. It took many, many blistering sunburns as a child before she started taking sunscreen seriously. I slather myself every day and my two pale daughters.
I’m the same age as Jen and grew up in blazing-hot Arizona where we would spend the whole summer around the pool. Just like she said, the prevailing theory was that it was best to build up a deep tan because, after that, you wouldn’t burn anymore. Sunscreen was for out-of-town cousins and feeble freckled redheads who were incapable of tanning! Of course, now we are in our late thirties, and a handful in our group have already had melanoma…
I’m older than Garner and what she is saying isn’t entirely true. We wore sunscreen. SPF 15 was about the highest available and many people were still sunbathing in baby oil in the 70’s but by the 80’s sunscreen was widely available and encouraged. People knew about skin cancer by then. It is likely it wasn’t a habit for most, but it was known. She is exaggerating a bit in my opinion.
No, it wasn’t. I grew up in South Europe mostly and I hadn’t even heard of sunscreen. Only when we returned to France in the late 80s I saw such a thing. I remember the Greek beaches very well and sunscreen was not popular. However, in South Europe I noticed the siesta time was a mandatory rest in the shadow for everyone. Children would stay inside or in the shady yards and patios from noon till 4 pm and that made a difference.
It wasn’t where I grew up, not until I was nearly done high school. There were campaigns but they didn’t really catch on in my area until sort of mid to late 90s. I’m from country Australia though so maybe that’s why, we were all similar to Garner where we just ran around until we were the colour of little nuts. How none of us randomly burst into flame I’m not sure.
Side note: the dry touch sunscreen is a GODSEND. Use it on your face for a great non-greasy sunscreen you can wear under makeup, just give it a minute or two to settle before starting.
I’m a few years older than her and we went the whole baby oil and lemon juice (in the hair) route.
I once fell asleep naked in our hot tub and woke up red from hairline to tiptoe, except for my back, which retained its usual fishbelly tone (the irony…). I was called Sunny-Side-Up for several weeks.
Ditto-. I’m a little bit older than Garner and there wasn’t dermatologists reminding parents about the importance of sunscreen all over TV- and what level of SPF we should use. There was oil and sunscreen and I don’t even remember numbers. The awareness and knowledge we haev today of sun damage is what she is talking about and it didn’t exist 20-30 years ago. Skin cancer was known but the predominance of research we have now was NOT there.
We did the burn then tan thing.
I’m 35 and definitely wore sunscreen as a kid. Now as a teen I used oil and tanning beds (eek). My poor children get sunscreen applied multiple times when we’re outside. No burns yet.
Same here.. always sunscreen and not sunbathing at certain hours of the day..
I never wore sunscreen as a kid. It’s not just the face and neck that pay the price, but the backs of the hands as well. I’ve had pre-cancerous lesions removed from them a few times now. It’s all cumulative but I don’t blame my mother. Nobody worried about such things back in the day. You just wanted tanning lotion and the darker you got the better.
If I didn’t use sunscreen then I would get sun poisoning, almost every time. My mom made sure I was lathered up and stayed that way.
I think that might be what I get… I end up in hives and grossness when exposed to too much sun. I forget what my Dr said it was a few years back.
I’m a few years younger than her – at the beach or on vacation somewhere tropical, we put on sunscreen. In my neighbor’s pool all summer? Nope. I’d be super tan every year. Now, after have a few spots need to be checked by the dermatologist, I wear sunscreen and sit under the umbrella at the beach.
I took my ghostly white boyfriend to the beach this weekend and i pestered him to death about sunscreen and kept reapplying. (He already gets malar rash on his face so Ive gotten him to always apply the highest he can to his face at all times even on cloudy days) But Im anal retentive about sunscreen even on me -Ive noticed a huge difference on my hyperpigmentation scars just from applying sunscreen and products with sunscreen to my face (i beach A LOT here in FL as soon as is passably warm) so i cant imagine pale people just left to the elements like that
I don’t necessary think it’s an age thing. I’m the same age as her but living in NZ we had the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign (t-shirt/sunscreen/hat) at least from the 80s. It was still preferable to be brown but even then we knew burning was bad, short term (ouch) and long term (let’s take a closer look at that, it may have to be cut out).
Though in true parental hypocrisy (which I’m occasionally guilty of) only Mum was allowed to wear the SPF 2 tanning oil, it was SPF15 minimum for us.
@Celebitchy, who wrote: “I disagree with Garner. I’m right around her age (she’s slightly older than me at 42) and my mom put sunscreen on me all the time when I was a kid. I had a couple of horrible burns when we went on outings unprepared, but that only happened twice. Other than that my mom slathered me with sunscreen, as I do with my kid now. We’re all fair skinned and we can be easily burned.”
I’m older than Jen by 17-years and even ‘I’ remember those ‘Coppertone’ billboards, magazine ads, and TV commercials from when I was a kid. Coppertone sold/marketed ‘sunscreen’ lotion as well as their famous tanning lotion. So instead of saying ‘Nobody my age wore sunscreen when I was a kid,’ they should perhaps change their PR script to ‘Nobody I knew wore sunscreen when I was a kid.’
yes, I am 10 years older than she is and grew up in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, where we lived on the water all summer. Although my Mom wore a “tan through” bikini, we were slathered in Sea & Ski sunscreen. I readily tan, but look much younger than my age due to all that sun protection.
I can still smell Sea & Ski!
Sea and Ski! There’s a blast from the past. It was what, SPF4? I was very fair and sunbathing made me sick, go to the hospital freaking ill. I remember when Sea and Ski came out with the first self-tanning lotion. My mother turned all of us and the sheets a horrible orange. I was so thrilled when Olay came out with a SPF15 facial lotion, it saved my face!
She is just so cute! Those dimples are adorable 🙂
I’m with you CB. She is a few years older than me, but my Mum always put sunscreen on me as a kid if I was out in the sun.
I’ve been using it myself every day (rain or shine) since I was about 20 and won’t go without it.
I’m a year younger than Jennifer, and we wore sunscreen only on occasion, like if we were going to the beach or to an amusement park where we would be out all day. Most of the time we didn’t wear it. I was never one to lie out in the sun and work on a tan because I got too bored, but I tanned every summer when I was a kid just from playing outside,
The only time I remember lying out to get a tan was when I was in high school and my mom always made me do it before prom in hopes that it would dry out the acne on my back;… cringe… I wonder if she remembers that? She also used to tell me it would make me look thinner because “dark meat looks smaller than white meat.” I was Goth back then and used to powder my face with baby powder to look paler, so we clashed a lot about that!
she is lovely but so very boring
I’m 30, and my dad was MILITANT about sunscreen. My aunt was 13 years younger than my dad, so to me that automatically meant she was cool (plus, she lived at the beach, drove a Firebird, and we listened to Paula Abdul tapes with the top down). She never put sunscreen on me when I visited her and I would come home burned and she and my parents would have the same argument about it every time.
Now that I have my own kids and I am super careful in the sun, I’m thankful that my dad was the one checking on that stuff the majority of the time.
I agree with her. I think back then people were aware of the pain of a sunburn and the danger of sun poisoning. I am not sure they knew about the long term effects of exposure to the sun. Skin cancer was not most people’s radar, unlike the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer
I’m about her age, and I had similar experiences as she did with the sun. My mom was fair and freckled, and I remember she would bake herself outside every summer and also go to the tanning bed. Getting a tan was her annual summer goal, and she worked hard at it, even though she did not tan well naturally. I am extremely fair, and I did the same thing every summer (minus the tanning bed) until I was about 18, even laying on one of those silver mats with baby oil on. My mom never tried to stop me, and she didn’t really make us put on sunscreen back then, and if she did the spf was always way too low for me. I was always called “ghost” by other kids at the beginning of summer (where I lived, being pale was not in fashion and everyone wanted to be tan, so I was always humiliated by that), and the only way I could get a tan was to fry myself first. Then it would peel, and then I’d be tan. When I was about 18 or 19 I decided to embrace my paleness after one too many painful sunburns. I haven’t really been out in the sun like that in over 20 years. My skin is still pale and smooth with no freckles, and I look a lot younger than I am, and I credit that to stopping with the sun at a young age. I do still worry that all of those childhood sunburns will affect me some day, but I examine my skin regularly and never ever lay out, and I am a skincare product junkie. When I was about 24 I had a basal cell carcinoma removed from my upper back, but I’ve never had anything else like that, thankfully (knock on wood).
Just wait! The sun damage will eventually rear it’s ugly head. I’ve noticed when going to warmer climates how wrinkly ppl are. The sun ages drastically. Especially women and their arms. The skin sags.
I’m 44 and I remember people using baby oil and a light reflector. Maybe the difference is that now, everyone KNOWS that’s a bad idea? My kids are teenagers and they might choose to skip the sunscreen, but they know they’re making a choice. I seriously thought my 4 SPF Bain de Soleil was a good idea.
(I turn lobster red when I get sunburned. And I got sunburned a LOT. My dermatologist says the only thing that’s saved me so far was my preference for reading books inside.)
Ah, I remember that 4SPF Bain de Soleil! I started using that in my late teens, before that I used baby oil! I grew up here in so cal, and for some insane reason, we all thought we had to be super tan. My mom did warn us not to overdo it, from her own experience, but we didn’t listen.
Woman, please.
I ‘m way older than her, and my mom always put sunblock on me. Yes, parents in the late 60’s and 70’s used sunblock.
Copper tone ads with the little girl getting her bikini bottoms pulled down a Scottish terrier, anyone? Anyone?
Yes Green, I do remember that ad.
We tanned by playing outside, but, I had never heard of sunblock or sunscreen until I was an adult. I remember peeling the skin off of my brothers’ backs while we watched (B&W) tv, so that tells you how old I am….
But the SPF was much, much lower, and the very use was often perceived as somewhat comical. It’s not that it didn’t exist, but that it wasn’t the product or marketing it is today–not by a long shot.
It’s like everything else, it all goes in cycles. We’ve all known that sun exposure was bad for you for a while, but sometimes it takes things happening at an extreme level (the sun beds, the very very young people getting melanomas, etc) for us to really think that it could happen to us. I remember knowing it was bad for me, but thinking that I’m not sensitive or fair-skinned, so it wouldn’t happen to me. (knock on wood). I use spf 1 million now. I didn’t then…
Here’s hoping we can get on top other things like nutrition and obesity with the same verve.
I’m 45. I didn’t even know what sunscreen was! Suntan oil to make you tan better; that’s what everyone I knew wore. We were basting ourselves!!
Exactly! MAYBE you could find SPF 10, if you looked really hard.
My generation (a bit older than you) never used sunscreen. In fact, I remember not being able find any in the drugstore. The fashion was for deep bronzed tans, and all the protects were designed to enhance tanning and make the skin darker. Those who were more DIY would mix baby oil and iodine and roast themselves as often as possible.
I was a deeply unfashionable child. My Italian grandmother went to a lot of trouble to find sunscreen for me and even pushed SUNBLOCK. A suntan was considered to be so peasant, I am not kidding. Not something for a lady. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Result: I am fifty and have skin like a grape. A few normal wrinkles, but no sun damage at all.
I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m a few years younger than her and my mom always made me wear sunscreen. As did most other moms then. She’s annoying.
In the early eighties when I was a young kid, I remember my mom had to get a prescription for SPF 15 sunscreen for me, SPF 8 was the highest you could buy over the counter. Otherwise i would burn so bad i would blister, i never could tan. I think the attitude back then though basically was that if you could tan and not burn, you didn’t need sunscreen.
I’m 39 and my mom (who was a very good mom BTW 😀 ) never put sunscreen on me, or herself. None of my friends were ever sunscreened either. I guess it’s kind of like seatbelts and smoking. I’m also wondering if it makes a difference as to where you grew up? I grew up in Maine where we get about 5 days of sun per year. Maybe those who grew up in, say, Florida or Arizona were a little more diligent?
But, my kids are always have sunscreen on. It’s much more the norm now than it was 30 years ago.
I’m 29… My parents ALWAYS made me wear sunscreen. Then as soon as I was about 15 years old and decided tanning was more important, sunscreen was left in the bag and replaced with oil. Now it’s back to the sunscreen… although I still tan very easily. I live at the beach, so I’m in the sun a lot.
Neutrogena is my go to sunscreen, I love their 45 spf for face- sunscreens often make me break out and this never has. Definitely recommend it if anyone has sensitive skin!
I remember the coppertone ads being about suntanning.. Maybe the sunblock vs no sunblock is a regional thing.
I am in the ‘what sunblock’ bunch. And what is truly a “OMG What were you thinking?!!?!!” moment… I am a smidge older then her, and being a teenager in Arizona where you literally get a suntan walking around your house, would be very tan. Sadly at the time, my Aunt was battling melanoma, and nobody said ‘get your brown buns out of the sun!’ to me.
I’m 42 and my “sunscreen” was the Ban De Soile orange gel spf 4 and that was only when I was a teen and bought it for myself and used it to tan not for any protection.
I will admit and go ahead and bash me but I am not a huge fan of sunscreen. The fastest growing segment for skin cancer is 15-29 year olds. Skin cancer has tripled since the 1970s, when we all started using sunscreen. There is no way we can slather all these chemicals on our bodies, chemicals that have been linked to cancer and think it will not have repercussions.
When going to the beach or pool we use the blue lizard. Other than that it is hats and protective clothing.
I’m with you, KWM, on all counts – history with sunscreen and current ideas.
One reason the sun has become such a problem is the ozone hole – which is worse near the equator. I’ve been to Australasia and you burn SO much faster down there where the hole is larger than in the Northern hemisphere. And unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that the ozone hole, which we had been tacking quite well for decades, is now starting to enlarge again.
The ultraviolet radiation from the sun is definitely a carcinogen, but so are many of the components of sunscreen. Often, our cures are as bad as (or worse) than our illnesses. Moderate levels of sun and non-toxic, non-invasive protections (like hats and clothing) are probably best. We are having a tremendous Vitamin D deficiency problem here in the U.S. because of overuse of sunscreen and there is a reason that many M.D.s are now recommending 10-15 minutes a day IN the sun, without any products blocking the rays.
70s- is when ozon layer depletion started… so i wouldnt blame sunscreens…
Correlation is not causation. Perhaps you have access to information I do not. Just wondering if you can share any medically peer reviewed clinical studies showing that sunscreen ingredients (I will use “ingredients” instead of “chemicals” as everything is a chemical) are cancer causing. I would be very interested in reading it/them.
I am Jennifer’s age and the perception changed while I was a teenager. My mother used to get bronzed every summer and I remember “laying out” as soon as the weather was warm enough to do so. When my mom hit HER 40’s and saw what was happening to her skin, she started beating me with the idea that sunscreen was important (and flossing – but that is a different post). I use Neutrogena’s daily sheer (or something) every day under my make-up and it makes a HUGE difference. It’s so sheet that I don’t notice it or mind it at all.
I’m 44, and a redhead. There wasn’t SPF when I was a kid in the 70s. I had so many bad sunburns before the age of 5 and I remember one in particular sent me to the hospital and I was vomiting and covered in blisters. As you might expect, I have had melanoma twice, and must see my dermatologist every 6 months for the rest of my life to make sure it doesn’t come back. I don’t leave the house without sunscreen and my daughters don’t either. The sun is not my friend.
I’m only 5 years younger than her and… yeah. We used sunscreen. We whined about it, but our parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles made us use it. Maybe she’s just talking about herself, or maybe things changed drastically in that 5 years, which I guess is possible. But she’s falling victim to the thing that Hollywood celebrities always do, of thinking her circumstances were universal.
(Btw: I grew up in Michigan, and yes, everyone used sunscreen during the summer. Now I live in Florida and people do not use it anywhere near as much, and there’s this weird unhealthy tanning culture down here too, and lots of people who look waaaay older than they are because of it.)
Things changed drastically.
Well….one counter on the argument that the protection is as bad as the sun. Not exactly. The issue is that people are slathering themselves with sunscreen and then spending too much time in the sun, thereby increasing their cumulative exposure to the cancer-producing rays. Without sunscreen, you would shorten your time in the sun because you burn. Without the burn tobremind you to get out of the sun, people stay outside far too long. That doesn’t mean the sunscreen is causing the cancer (though I agree, unnecessary chemicals are never a good idea).
I’m three years older than Jennifer Garner, and if you’re a few years younger, then you’re talking about a crucial few years in sunscreen development and marketing.
Growing up, we rarely wore sunscreen. In college, I couldn’t find anything with an SPF higher than 10, and that was considered to be an astonishingly high amount of sun protection–as in, if you’re wearing SPF 10, why even go outside? I usually wore 8 or 10, because I’m a very pale redhead. But a lot of my friends wore SPF 2. You read that right. SPF 2.
At the point Garner’s talking about products were marketed to help you tan, not protect you from the sun.
I’ll be 36 in a few days and my mum didn’t buy sunscreen EVER. She bought Coppertone dark tanning oil and unless we wore that, we wore nothing. We had a pool growing up and my sister and I were very dark all Summer long. Until the day my mum died 7 years ago (not of sun cancer by the way), she still wore baby oil in the sun.
Neutrogena products are hands down the best. I hoard my coupons and stock up when they are on sale. I find generics are very hard to get off once the outdoors are done for the day.
It’s the face wash i use. I have paid big money for my beauty products, used doctors’ skin care lines, on and on and I loved my expensive skin care regimen at night. It was a ritual with all my beauty products. Not anymore. I love Neutrogena for sensitive skin that moisturizes and I use plain Oil of Olay. It’s one of those things where you need something right away. You’re out of your regular skin care line, and that’s how I ended up with Neutrogena’s face wash and using Oil of Olay as a moisturizer. And I don’t use eye creams anymore, none of that dotting along the bone I was taught. I just slather Oil of Olay on while my skin is damp all the way under my eyes and all over. And my skin looks great.
I’m 53, grew up in the Midwest, and no one I knew had ever even heard of sunscreen. My sisters used to lay out covered in baby oil-they tried to get as tan as they could. I never liked lying in the sun, but it was a given that you burned at first, then you started to tan. My mom was an LPN and we never had any kind of SPF product. The whole point was to get as brown as you could!
I really love Jennifer-I still think of her in that Oscar gown with the fringe, so beautiful!
She’s funny…”tossed to the sun like wolves.” Are wolves tossed to the sun? And if so, where is PETA while all this wolf tossing is going on.
Have always worn sunscreen since I was a kid. I am very fair (thanks Irish-American genes!) and I always win the “Who is paler?” competition. So far I have never met a paler person than me and my mom drilled into me at an early age to always wear sunscreen (nothing lower than 30. Anything over 45 doesn’t make a huge difference IMO). Just spent this past weekend at the beach and I was the only one out of my friends to not get a sunburn since I am militant about reapplying every 2 hours and I usually throw a shirt on if I’m not swimming. I don’t tan ever. If I get a bad sunburn, it will fade to a slightly darker shade, it barely makes a difference.
Also your “waterproof” sunscreen? There is no such thing as waterproof sunscreen. I know this from experience. Next time you go in the water, look around you. You will see the sunscreen oil coming right off you in the water (it doesn’t matter if you’ve let it be “absorbed” into your skin. It will come right off). If you don’t reapply immediately after taking a swim, that’s just asking for trouble! And don’t forget to reapply just as frequently when it’s overcast outside! I’ve learned this the hard way. UV rays pass just as easily through clouds.
I am super confused about the crows feet thing. I am the same age as Jennifer Garner and have the exact same skin tone. And spent several hours a day all summer long as a kid baking in and around the pool at my grandma’s condo in Texas. Bad burns were gotten and I ended up with freckled shoulders. But zero crows feet and am regularly taken for younger. Is there some other component to avoiding those kind of wrinkles (because I would like to keep avoiding them) in the future?
I grew up the same way, no sun screen. The burns were legendary because when I would get back to school from summer vacation in the second grade. My teachers will call me dirty face, because I was peeling so my face was brown and pink. Yeah, no sun screen for me
We added iodine to baby oil to tan faster (I just googled it to make sure I remembered that right and got a bunch of hits saying you can use the mixture to remove body hair. Uh, no. We shaved WITH the baby oil and iodine mixture).
I remember seeing the weird white sunscreen for the first time and thinking the whole premise of wanting to prevent tanning was odd, but I had spent my kidhood as a redhead trying to get as dark as my blonde, blue-eyed friends. We always just figured I wasn’t trying hard enough or was using the wrong mix.
We spent all day every day at the pool, and if I got a bad sunburn my mom would look at me like I had three heads and ask why I didn’t put a t-shirt on if I felt like I was getting red.
I wonder if the difference is part temporal and part geographic/cultural. Any Philly people out there? Tanning and laying out or big hat and sunscreen?