Local sunscreens ARE still lekker

If Ando & crew can use it, so can you!

Late last year CANSA got everyone in a tizz cos they decided to announce that none of the locally produced sunscreens make the grade as far as European standards are concerned, making lotsa people think local wasn’t so lekker after all. Turns CANSA were pretty much waaaay off-the-mark with that call.

SA does have its own Sunscreen standard (SANS 1557:2009) as well as using the Australian Sunscreen Standard too (AS/NZS 2604:1998). The furore caused by CANSA was whether the sunscreen standard in South Africa meets what’s called the COLIPA test used in Europe.

Which right there and then should raise a red flag….cos what the hang do the pasty euro’s know about the sun anyway -  Saffa’s and Aussies live under the blazing thing!

Anyway, back to the doff muppets at CANSA – they went and made some pretty sweeping statements about the state of our local sunscreens being kak when all they did was test a random sample of 8% of the sunscreens – and only scanned each product ONCE (considering that COLIPA requires 15 tests). Not very good science in anyone’s books sadly.

So, local IS still lekker….and safe!

Island Tribe, one of the most popular locally-made sunscreens amongst surfers, tests their products according to SA & Aus standards, as well as the Boots standard – a well-respected UK sunscreen standard; and they make the grade in all those tests. So surfers can happily keep plakking themselves full of Island Tribe and be safe in the knowledge that they’re keeping the UVA/B at bay.

Even better news is that the manufacturers of Island Tribe will be improving upon their formulations and be meeting the latest ISO standard for sunscreen, which is streaks better than the COPLIA thingy anyway.

Remember to stick that sunscreen on though – cos it ain’t gonna help bogger-all sitting in the tube in your car…

Also not a bad thing to go visit the dermatologist once a year - just to make sure you haven't got any lil nasties growing on your skin. Rather catch em early and nip em out before you end up having to cut a whole arm off or something!

After an 8 year gap I finally got round to seeing mine last week - after being declared healthy in about 5 minutes we ended up talking surfing for the next 15! Turns out Dr Proctor was also a surfer back in the day, and was a contemporary of all the guys from the 70's we've been featuring in our vintage section lately. Yet further confirmation that PE is really just a very small place....and that a surprising number of ballies used to surf!


If you missed the earlier article on Sunscreen - check it out <here>