Quick Tip Tuesday: Sunscreen Expires!

Did you know that sunscreen expires? I did, but I forgot. Oops.

When Jason’s family was in Ohio, us older kids decided we wanted to go swimming. We get a time and a place, and we go. We get there, and I am the only one with sunscreen. No problem, I have two bottles.  So we all slather up and jump in.

From 12pm to 3pm is supposedly the hottest time of day to be swimming. We went swimming from 10am to 12:30pm. So while we didn’t go during the hottest part of the day, it was 80 degrees by 10am, and that’s pretty hot.

That afternoon, several of the boys were complaining of being burnt. They were burnt, pretty badly too. I couldn’t believe it, because there were 3 of us that weren’t hardly red at all. I had been the one to put sunscreen on some of the boy’s backs, and I knew I had put it on good and thick.

What we quickly realized was, the ones who were burnt, were the ones who had used sunscreen I bought 2 summers ago. Those of us who were not burnt, had used the sunscreen I bought last summer.  Needless to say, I will not be keeping sunscreen longer than 2 years.

I cannot believe how burnt they were.  We hadn’t even went swimming during the hottest part of the day and I had put that sunscreen on thick.  So if you have sunscreen older than 2 years, throwing it away and buying new would be a very good idea.  The other tip I found online, was to put sunscreen on 30 minutes before sun exposure, and we basically put it on and jumped in.

Don’t know which kind to buy? I did a little searching online and found a site that researches sunscreens and the ingredients in them, to help you chose a safer sunscreen for you and your family.   EWC’s Guide to Summer Sun.