Re: Sunburnification
 

At the risk of sounding like -- you know -- a parent or something, wear a hat and smear sunscreen on your exposed skin. Skin cancer is nothing to joke about, and a teenage sunburn can lead to a melanoma at 40. If skin cancer doesn't actually kill you, you might be like my father-in-law who has had to have skin cancers carved out of his face and ears several times over the last 50 years -- and every divot leaves a scar. I grew up sailing and bodysurfing in Huntington Beach, and I have already had to have a painful treatment for pre-cancerous skin lesions. I'd rather you all have pale skin (for you northern European types) than start growing skin cancers.

There. I know I sounded like a parent, but I feel better now.

Re: Sunburnification
 

I remember that. That was horribly disgusting.

I am unable to achieve true sunburnification unless I am at marching band practice. Then my neck and face get horribly burnt and sometimes blistered. Still not as bad as Cody's though.

Re: Sunburnification
 

I don't get sunburn. :cool:

SPF 40, baby!

Re: Sunburnification
 

If I don't put on sunscreen (or even if I do) I will burn. Back-to-back burns on the upper back hurts. A few true stories:

Summer camp on houseboats on the Sacramento Delta (03): I put sunscreen on myself in the morning, sat on top of the boat for a couple hours, and after that, found out I had very red legs. If I hadn't been wearing water shoes, my feet would have been red too. Moral: One application is not enough. Reapply later.

Early one summer (04), on a camping trip: Went for a swim in a river without sunscreen. My upper back got it.

Later that summer: at a Scout camp, took badge classes at the pool for three hours a day. Got very red upper back in the first day. Forgot sunscreen the second day. Third day: [Lifesaving badge counselor]: Please don't tell me you forgot to put sunscreen on again. [Me]: I remembered this time!

I got burned about a week ago on my arms just doing the lawn (a two hour job, approximately.)

Re: Sunburnification
 

I'm excruciatingly white, with thin light blonde hair as well, and am light enough to have been dubbed "Albino Jesus" before in my days with longer hair. I burn extremely quickly, faster than just about anyone else in my family or that I know.

To make matters worse, I live in Arizona. I can start burning here in March usually, and will continue to be able to all the way through September (I already got a slight burn about mid-march of this year walking 3 miles one morning). On particularly bad days in the summer I've burned simply from walking to a friend's house who lives only 4 blocks away.

Band camp in August is great too. About a gallon of water per person, hats, as much outside time in the evening as possible, and SPF 40 for everyone (that 5 and 10 tanning is stuff is like shielding something from bullets with a piece of paper).

Re: Sunburnification
 

So far, the only parts of my body that has managed to suffer sunburnification are my shoulders. ...It was kinda neat to peel skin off a week later.
I hypothesize that the rest of my skin has developed sun-resistance, since I never bothered to put any sunscreen on in my life. I do tan during the summer, though, if I get out of the house enough. It doesn't look good on me. I'm already kind of blah-dark for an Asian girl.

Re: Sunburnification
 

The sun? Whats that? The big lightbulb in the sky?

Wow - it's probaly a waste of energy. Hmm, that certainly doesn't look like a filament in the center. I wonder who gets to change it? The great janitor in the sky? Poor guy, he must have a big ladder.

Oh, you mean its not a indecasent lightbulb? Is it flourescent? Can't be, no, it's too yellow, too much heat. Looks like halogen to me.

Wait, you say it's fusion powered? Oh what? The French got ITER working and now own the big lightbulb? How much did they pay for that?

Wait, what do you mean it's not a lightbulb...

Re: Sunburnification
 

Within the first 10 minutes in Chicago Saturday I was already burnt to a crisp, and yes I did wear sunscreen... spf 30.

Re: Sunburnification
 

who has time to get sunburned when there is THE SUPER BOWL OF SMARTS to prepare for?

Re: Sunburnification
 

Bah, we walk to Altlanta, from California, uphill, through the snow, both ways. You sunburn quite easily like that.

Re: Sunburnification
 

As everyone else I've met with red hair, I burn really easily, SPF 70something is what I use. (Get stuff with Titanium Dioxide, it works wonders) I did end up with a tan after PE last summer, but that has mostly gone away.

Amen to that. What people don't realize is how damaging a "healthy" tan is. Tanning is a response to damage, trying to prevent more, like a scab. If you're covered in scabs do you look healthy? NEVER TRY TO TAN. It is even recommended that babies aren't allowed in the sun for something like the first six months... period, no exceptions. Don't neglect your eyes either, they can be damaged too. (Make sure you have sunglasses that protect against UV-A and UV-B, ones that don't promote damage) Don't use tanning beds either, when ever I hear that someone does this I want to knock some sense into them, most skin cancers aren't life threatening, melanoma is, it is caused by exposure to UV-A, guess what tanning beds use? UV-A. Tanning bed use triples your chances of getting it. DON'T DO IT! (sorry if that went on a bit, I feel very strongly about people potentially ruining their life for a temporary aesthetic benefit)

Re: Sunburnification
 

I don't usually get sunburns but I did get one on the top of my head attending a track meet.
The day was partly sunny and barely in the 60's but becasue of that I didn't take any precautons and cover the top of my head with a hat and I was flaking for days.

Re: Sunburnification
 

Haha, yup.

The first time I went down to Florida to visit UM, I didn't just get sunburned. I would prefer to call it sun RAPED, as opposed to sun "kissed".

Being a redhead with a fair complexion, you would think that I would have anticipated the stronger UV rays down in Florida. But, 5 five hour trip from Miami to Gainesville in a convertible - on a cloudy day with NO SUNSCREEN - gave me the worst sunburn I had ever had. My entire upper chest/shoulders were cracked and blistered, and I had to go to the doctor to get burn cream. At first, it didn't hurt too bad, but the day I came back to school, it started to dry out (and get really painful). I went to the nurse, and the "normal" stuff that they give to relieve sunburns hurt me soooo bad that I was literally in tears and squirming about 5 seconds after she put it on. She told me that I had a second degree burn and needed to go to the doctor.

Even today, 7 months after that visit, whenever I take a shower and the hot water runs over my chest, the areas that were burned still turn bright pink. I don't know if that means the deeper layers of skin are still healing, or what. But it's pretty weird. Next year, when I move to Florida, I will be careful to wear sunscreen EVERY DAY. I never want to repeat that painful experience again. I know that having really fair skin isn't considered to be in style, but honestly, I don't care. It's my way of being unique. Plus, I don't have to worry about skin cancer from excessive tanning. :)

Re: Sunburnification
 

Lets see, being Irish, Swiss, German, English, French, Candien, and Scottish, I burn in the time it takes you to say Jack Robinson. I got my first tan line last summer, and that was only because i was canoeing for a week, and i got burned so much it became a tan. Burns dont hurt anymore, because it happens so much to me. I get burned playing minigolf for 45 minutes. They need to make an SPF 6000. I don't get tan, i get freckles. Its disgusting. I have freckles the size of the diameter of a pencil eraser on the end. They aren't cancer, theyre just massive freckles. And they are all over my back. Its actually really funny.

Although I know this one kid on the canoe trip who had his shirt off the entire time. Well, he had these massive blisters and was in so much pain for the rest of the trip. Ouch.

As for turning pink in the shower, I don't think that has anything to do with burns. I turn pink in the shower if the water is hot enough.

I was in Mexico and got so badly burned I couldn't move. At all. My cousin kept asking me to play, and she got really annoyed with me that I wouldn't. It hurt to move. I used a bottle of Aloe a day. It was pretty bad.

Re: Sunburnification
 

Both are burns, just the sun is a radiation burn and the shower is a thermal burn. If the pink goes away right when you get out, then it was just the blood vessels there dilating like crazy to carry away the extra heat to help prevent a burn. So the same mechanism as a burn response just healed real fast.

Wetzel