I'm very fair skinned and have light blue eyes with naturally blondish red hair. I moved to San Diego from the north and though at first being out in the strong sunlight here seemed ok, as time has passed, my skin feels really sensitive to the sun. It's ok for me to be in a sun a few minutes, but then I feel my skin feels itchy and uncomfortable like it it burning. If I put sunscreen on, it gets worse. And if I swim and put on sunblock during the hottest part of the day, swimming is not pleasurable. My face BURNS, like someone throwing rubbing alcohol into a wound over and over again, until I feel it isn't worth it.
But since I am in San Diego, most people think I am weird for not LOVING the sun. I mean, why wouldn't I love high temps and desert sun beating on me from 8am on, EVERYDAY? And don't get me wrong, I like the city, but the attitude of the people I meet when I say I don't want to be in the sun all day, gets me down. They act like I am a hermit when I want to stay out of the sun during peak hours. I try to do activities outside before 10am and then after 4pm like websites tell fair skinned people to do. I also fear not only the itching and sweaty unpleasantness, but looking at people who are 50 here, they look so much older due to the sun, their skin is like saggy leather with freckles on top of freckles if they are fair skinned and have tanned for years.
So I guess my question is, how can I explain my situation to people in a way they won't see it as weird? It isn't like I am a vampire, I like the sun, I just don't like it on my skin all day long or when it burns me, but here in San Diego, it is that way all the time, as opposed to the North, where it can be overcast and rainy a lot of the time.
I thought for awhile, my skin was used to the sun too, I walked to work four days out of the week, it is only this year my skin reacted to sunscreen and swimming like it did. It really sucks because I'd like to be outside more, but my skin doesn't tan. I'm 36. I've tried to tan and I don't. I accepted this and like my skin the color it is, even if people think it isn't cool to be pale.
I'm afraid too to wear hats and long sleeves during the summer around my friends, because they might make fun of me, but I really do see this as having a condition where I can't go into the sun for very long and it isn't a laughing matter. It hurts. Then I also feel flu-ish the next day because of sun exposure.
I am not sure what to do or say. I think I limit my social activities with people until nighttime because I worry about having to explain all this to them. People here don't seem to understand not all of us want to tan to a crisp and hang out in the sun all day.
Frankly, I would just like to be able to take a 15 minute walk in the summer sun here without burning. Sometimes I can't even do that with sunscreen on. I think it is absorbed but I sweat it off and then I burn, especially on my nose and upper backs of my arms.
If anyone knows of a good sunscreen that doesn't make you break out or offers all day protection, let me know, maybe that would solve the problem. Right now, I still go out in the sun, but then also stay in, like my friends were going to the water park today, but the place they were going to was going to be 90 degrees or so during the day and I felt that and trying to re-apply sunscreen after I swam, would bring up that burning rubbing alcohol feeling I got when swimming a few weeks back (we were out for four days and each day no matter what I did, my face would burn so bad once I got in the water and I tried a lot of different sunscreens and application methods). It just didn't sound like fun for me overall.
It's hard for me to explain to people because my boyfriend's sister doesn't use sunscreen and gets burned all the time because she is half Irish. Yet no one seems to care about these burns. It just seems very weird to me, yet at the same time I know they think my avoidance of the sun is weird too.
How can I explain my situation here? Any ideas?
Tags: