Teens and Tans!

Even though it was gorgeous outside today, 24 teens showed up for our Teens and Tans program. We started the event with a presentation by Janet DeSipio, a Physician Assistant at Bryn Mawr Skin and Cancer Institute. She brought a slide presentation and talked about the structure of skin, skin cancer, and skin care. It was interesting, educational, and a little bit scary! The group asked a lot of great questions and the presentation actually went on longer than I had expected. That's good, though, because it meant that everyone was paying attention and actually learning something!

After the presentation, we rotated through four tables to discuss issues of sun exposure, tanning, and skin color. Members of the Teen Advisory Board kept the discussion at each table on track, and everyone was able to write on the table covers while they talked. Everyone enjoyed covering the tables with graffiti, but they also showed a lot of interesting thoughts. I will share some of the ideas in a future post.

While we were eating healthy snacks (good for the skin!), we looked at the ingredients on a variety of daily-use facial sunscreen products. I purchased four at Target and two at the beauty counters at Macy's. Ms. DeSipio recommended looking for ingredients that block UVA rays, especially recommending at least 3% avobenzone. (Some brands of sunscreen use trademarked names for formulations of UVA-blockers, such as Helioplex, Parsol 1789, and Mexoryl.) We found that five of the six face sunscreens had these ingredients. The only one that didn't was the cheapest, a Target store brand, and we tossed it in the trash!

At the end of the program, Roslyn was the lucky winner of the Neutrogena gift basket, and five other people took home those bottles of daily-use sunscreen. Everyone at the event went home with a gift bag of sample products from Ms. DeSipio and book called The Science Inside Skin. If you missed the program, check out a copy of the book from the teen nonfiction section. There are also several other new books on skin care, health, and beauty, so look for those as well.

Funding for this program was from Neutrogena through a grant from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Thanks!!

Ms. DeSipio giving her presentation to the group.

A group talking and writing about one of our discussion questions.

The lesson of the day.