Is there anyone who smells sunscreen and does not think of the beach? Of course, back in my day, it was called suntan lotion. There was no sunscreen. Everyone wanted to be brown like that little girl on the Coppertone billboard ad. Funny thing, it didn't make me brown. It made me red. And later, after I was at home, sometimes I got blisters. Water blisters, Mother called them because when they broke (or I broke them) water rolled out, and, horrors, the skin peeled off. It was dead. Underneath I was still white!
My nose was the worst. It peeled over and over and over again because it stuck out into the sun's rays whether I had suntan lotion on or not. Even in the ocean, my nose was doomed to be burnt. Then my mom found that white stuff, zinc oxide, cheap and effective as long as it stays on, but eewww, the look of it.
Sunscreen today seems to work for me. I use it religiously. Melanomas and other skin cancers can tend to do that to a person. It makes me sad to think that something I found to be such fun when I was younger is now replaced by fear, fear of feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin and the color it brings to my cheeks. It was always a "healthy look" when I was a teenager. Even today, knowing the damage it does, it's hard to believe a tan is not a good thing. I can understand how young people feel and why the sun is still "worshipped".
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