HOW TO CHOOSE A SUNSCREEN?

Deciding to travel to a tropical country first thing you should do, after buying the tickets, is to chose beach cloth and SUNSCREEN. Sometimes tourists don't pay to much attention to this, cause you can survive without sunscreen being in Paris, London or Moscow during summer, but once you arrive to Brazil, this cream must always be with you; here it is almost as essential as a passport and a credit card. Belive me sun in Brazil, especially during summer (December, January, February) is very strong even if you are walking in the city center. The best decision is to buy two types of sunscreen - for face and for body, cause it isn't a secrect that our face skin is very sensitive and sunlight is one of the causes of wrinkles, so your face needs a special protection! I'm sure, nobody wants to spend long-expeted vacations on the bed staring to the hotels's walls with your tomato-color skin.

 A little bit about brands. 

If you have your favorite brand, we advise you to buy few bottles before traveling. If you don't have any prefferences, Brazilian market has a wide range of cosmetic brands from international: L'oreal, Nivea, J&J, to national, like Boticario, Natura, etc.

Any pharmacy or supermarket you enter in summer season, first thing you'll see is Sundown, Nivea or L`oreal sunscreens. Prices vary from R$ 30 -70,00. I think most of all Brazilians use Sundown from Johnson&Johnson, cause price is acceptable and effect is good, but I, personally, didn't like the smell very much, whenever you go at summer, you can easily notice in the crowd who uses this brand. But it's only if we are talking about traditional one, because for collection summer 2012 Sundown launched special line SUNDOWN SENSES. The design was developed by Brazilian stylist Adriana Barra, it has 3 types SPF 15, 30, 50, the texture of the cream is much more light and more resistant to water.

The real success on summer 2012 had Nivea, with its cream that combines protection (SPF 15 and 30) and suntan! I found this formula perfect, and even with my light skin it really worked - became tan faster and no sunburn.

Of course the leader among all brands is L'oreal, rather expensive (as all imported goods in Brazil), but this brand name doesn't need comments.

Talking about national brands I highly recommend you to take a look in Boticario store, not only to buy a sunscreen but for cosmetic in general for men and women.

Natura the biggest rival to Boticario - also has awesome quality, using local plants and fruits, but it doesn't have an officail store, usually you can find it in beauty salons.

What SPF should you chose?

Usually in the store you can find following categories: 5, 15, 30, 50. The choice depends on your skin type, season and part of day.

Skin type:

SPF 50	REACTION On SUN Always burns, never tans; extremely sun-sensitive skin	SKIN TYPE Pale white; red-headed, Irish/Scots/Welsh
30	Burns easily, tans minimally; very sun-sensitive skin	White to beige; fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue or green- eyed,
30	Burns moderately, tans gradually to light brown;  minimally sun-sensitive	Beige; average skin Italian, French
15	Burns minimally, tans well to moderate brown; minimally sun-sensitive	Light brown; Mediterranean-type Greek, Spanish
15	Rarely burns, tans profusely to dark brown	Moderate brown; Middle Eastern, some Hispanics, some African-Americans
5	Never burns, tans profusely	Dark brown or  black; African American

Seasons

Don't think if you are mulatto, in Brazil during summer vacations you just can use suntan. I don't recommend you to do this here, in Germany  - maybe, but here even Brazilians in January use SPF 30. If you decide to travel to central or south part of Brazil from May to August, in this case SPF 15 or just suntan is enough. If we are talking about North, the region that is close to equatorial line with infinit summer season, we advise you to take SPF 30 or 50.

And the last advice is about hours, try to stay in the shadow from 12 to 15. The best time for sanbathing is from 7 - 11 am and from 16-20 pm.

In the end I would like to give you some basic, but useful tips 1) Modern sunscreens don’t totally protect skin from sun radiation, they just facilitate your skin to generate its own protection mechanism and only from B-rays! If you find somewhere sunscreen that promises you protection filter from A-rays, be aware: it’s a fake, cause today such sunscreens haven’t been created yet. They probably won’t be invented in nearest future. 2) To choose SF you need to define type of your skin carefully. Try to define how long you can stay under the sun without your skin becoming red (usually from 2 to 30 minutes), then multiply this time on SF you’re using, for example, 10 min x 15 SF = 150 minutes, it means you can spend under the sun two hours and a half without renewing sunscreen. 3) Buy two types of sunscreen with high SF (around 30) and low (around 8), so you can prepare your skin in the beginning of vacations, slightly decreasing the level of protection. 4) If you plan to spend more time in water, choose oil sunscreen, cause it’s more difficult to wash it away, or you can buy a sunscreen resistant to water, but consider, even if you stay in water around 20 min, the level of protection decrease on 50%. 5) Those who buy sunscreen “made in USA” consider that American SF 15 is equal to European SF 10! Of course, now they are starting to adapt its products to European standards, but still be careful about this.   6) I highly recommend you to buy sunscreen at home, due to some reasons. First of all there are always plenty of things to buy, when you are abroad, and second, all imported goods are extremely expensive in Brazil because of import taxes. So your favorite L'oreal or Nivea can cost 100% more expensive here. 7) Specialists today recommend to buy sunscreens with protection from wrinkles, because sunlight is one of the reasons of this problem.

Hope this article will be useful for you!
Take care and have fun!