The Good Guys
Ah, the sun. My trip to St. Lucia was the reason I spent the last 2 months going to the tanning salon. The first month I only went once a week for 10 minutes, I bumped it up to 12 minutes by the second month. Growing up in Southern California I was taught to abhor the “fake and bake” in favor of the real thing. That’s all well and good when the “real thing” happens most months of the year. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. Let me insert here that I am well aware of the dangers of tanning. I am also keenly conscious of the “first burn of the summer” phenomenon. For those of you unaware of this event, it is the belief that one must get an initial, all body burn, in order to tan the rest of the summer. Don’t ask me why, it was just a commonly accepted fact growing up on the beaches of So Cal. So, thinking that a Caribbean “first burn” would be worse than a few months getting my skin used to fake rays, I chose the latter. Having only done carry-on luggage for our flights, we were unable to bring large amounts of sun screen and figured we would just buy it at the resort…which we did… for $17 dollars a can. I picked a Banana Boat dry oil aerosol spray (this was something new I hadn’t seen before) in SPF 8. I have to admit that buying SPF 8 is a new thing to me. My entire life I’ve been a 6 kind of girl, but, being told that the Caribbean sun is hotter, I chose a higher SPF. The aerosol can was terrific. I could easily spray my back and it was easy to rub in. I did, however, use Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock SPF 30 on my face (which luckily fell just under 3oz and thus was able to make the journey with me). After all, one must protect oneself from wrinkles. The Banana Boat ran out after two days. On the third day I decided to buy a local brand ($10 vice $17), and an SPF 15 at that! I did this mostly to make my husband happy who frowned every time I sprayed my SPF 8 on. Never has that old phrase “you get what you pay for” been more accurate. The Banana Boat 8 was great! It wasn’t oily, it went on evenly, and I never burned; just tanned after spending all day in the sun! The local brand 15, however… Not so great. It left a bizarre white film all over me and after two hours I was burned to a crisp. Me = not happy. I ended up retiring to the room early and proceeded to spend the next 18 hours rubbing aloe vera gel all over. Grrr…. My lesson learned? Spend the extra dollars on a name brand that you recognize, it just may save your skin…
