I've internalized the view of "your skin is your largest organ", so I treat as one. I don't generally put things on my skin I wouldn't put in my mouth.
Most sun exposure is on the nose, ears, arms. If some sun exposure is healthy, then the best way to do it is to be completely naked and only be in the sun for 10 minutes. By exposing more surface area, you can get as much sun in 10 minutes as you would by just exposing you face for 2 hours. No burns. In engineering terms, it's like load balancing the sun across several body parts.
There was just an article I saw last year about a sunscreen recall because it contained ingredients that caused leukemia or something. Not to mention some of the mental health benefits of sun.
If you want to reduce sun exposure, probably better to shade yourself with clothes or umbrellas than put chemicals on your skin, or use something natural like zinc on sensitive areas like nose and ears.
Also, there is more red light around sunrise/sunset. That's healthier light. You want to avoid blue light (UV), which is magnified (like a magnifying glass on the atmosphere) in the middle of the day.
I've never heard of this 'load balancing' being a thing. You can get totally sunburned on an exposed spot. Or do you mean in terms of vitamin D generation?
I think the point is that you can get the same vitamin D dose from a gentle exposure of a lot of skin, or a massive and damaging over-exposure of a small part of your skin, or a spectrum in between.
The same general idea that you could light a room with a single LED die overdriven to thermal death in minutes, or many adequately-cooled underdriven ones virtually indefinitely.
Or maybe more similarly, cooking with a 10kW cutting laser rather than an electric stovetop would make a huge mess of your cookware.
Most sun exposure is on the nose, ears, arms. If some sun exposure is healthy, then the best way to do it is to be completely naked and only be in the sun for 10 minutes. By exposing more surface area, you can get as much sun in 10 minutes as you would by just exposing you face for 2 hours. No burns. In engineering terms, it's like load balancing the sun across several body parts.
There was just an article I saw last year about a sunscreen recall because it contained ingredients that caused leukemia or something. Not to mention some of the mental health benefits of sun.
If you want to reduce sun exposure, probably better to shade yourself with clothes or umbrellas than put chemicals on your skin, or use something natural like zinc on sensitive areas like nose and ears.
Also, there is more red light around sunrise/sunset. That's healthier light. You want to avoid blue light (UV), which is magnified (like a magnifying glass on the atmosphere) in the middle of the day.