When the summer season settled in, everyone loves to
stay outside for outdoor activities such as the beach, barbeque, sports etc.
However, this could also mean that the risks of having skin cancer increases
during the summer months due to high exposure to UV rays. Sunscreen or sunblock
is the best method to prevent any potential skin damages to occur; therefore
during the season, many sunscreen industries such as Banana Boat and Hawaiian
Tropics received high benefits in their marketing unit.
SPF (Sun Protection Factors) is a factor that many
consumers look at when they purchase sunscreens. The higher the number, the
better; however, most of them overlooked one key ingredient, titanium dioxide.
It is an inorganic compound that is approved by FDA to be at a safe level for
consumer use. Titanium dioxide is labeled in the back of most sunscreens as a
UV protection agent and absorbent against the harmful spectrum of UVA and UVB
rays.
Recently, some chemists who conducted some
experiments found more potential hazards that titanium dioxide may affect on
consumer’s epidermis layer of the skin. Pro-longed use of titanium dioxide has
been found to create toxic on the skin. The toxic appears on the skin as titanium
dioxide absorbs UV rays. The toxic compounds that they found were crystalline solids,
rutile and anatase. Both are one of the forms of TiO2 found in
nature. However, anatase is the compound that concerned most chemists because
it is difficult to wash off from the skin. As it lingers on the skin’s surface,
it creates a damaging effect on the skin and increases the skin’s aging by free
radicals even in low UV environment. Chemists emphasized and favored that
pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries should minimize the output of anatase
crystalline and lean on products with rutile crystalline form of titanium dioxide.
Anatase
Rutile
Copyright:
Left and middle pictures are taken for educational purposes only. They are in the references. The far right picture is a picture created by me.
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