Hi everyone,
I am a guy in my early 30s and I have never cared much for my skin.
I realized that that was ignorant and probably not the best thing to do for the health of my skin.
What I used on my skin before was just regular run of the mill sunscreen in the summer when I was expecting to be outside for a while and hand creme in the winter, because my skin gets super dry on the meaty part of my thumb and on the flubby skin between my ring fingers and the pinkies.
I never use anything but water and soap in my face outside of the shower.
Aside from my dry hands in the winter I was perfectly content with my skin. I think my face looks just fine the way it is and doesn't really feel unhealthy to me.
What gave me the push to think about skincare is that I got my first bigger tattoo recently and I don't want to destroy it's longevity by sheer ignorance and bad care.
And I guess having good and healthy skin all over the rest of my body can't hurt either.
Is there a good resource you can point me towards to start learning?
If I just go to Youtube I am not sure I could keep good advise apart from bad advise.
And as a more concrete question, is there a product with built in sunscreen that I can wear everyday?
Ideally as the only thing I have to put on my skin.
Because it is going to be hard to convince me to believe using a lot of different products benefits me more than those that want to sell many different products.
Thank you so much for any answer.
I know I am probably pretty ignorant right now, but hey, at least I am willing to learn.
That depends on factors like the amount of skin you have in one part of the body (face – neck – legs etc.), which even in one area can vary greatly between individuals. Those recommendations are also kind of confusing sometimes as they might not tell you what exactly is meant (does "face" include the neck? What about the ears?). They're pretty diverse, too – some tell you to apply 1/4 of a teaspoon on your face, others say 1/2 a teaspoon for your face, head, and neck … In addition, you'd have to know what they mean by teaspoon: a metric teaspoon (5 mL), one teaspoon in the US customary system (about 4.93 mL, although that's (hopefully) reserved for culinary measurements), or a random teaspoon they found in their kitchen drawer? It's a mess.
SPF is tested at 2 mg per cm^2^, and this is also the amount that is used in most studies, so that might be your best bet to get the labelled protection. It's also one of the reasons why higher SPF is generally better as you could "get away" with applying a lower amount while not realistically sacrificing protection too much.
But good luck actually applying that much reliably consistently. I guess if you don't want to exactly measure the amount of skin on your face and the appropriate amount of sunscreen (even just once), just try to apply liberally? It's a really tricky process to communicate to consumers, which is why those approximate recommendations exist; otherwise, you might put a lot of people off using sunscreen altogether.