Summer is here!!!! Check your Sunscreen

As I sit here writing this, there is a good old-fashioned crazy thunderstorm hitting my area. The kind that only happens when its humid and hot in the summertime. In a few short weeks I will be leaving the country-side of PA and heading back to Long Island. The storms on LI are good but the ones in PA (when you live on 17-acres with no one else around) are something else!!

But I digress....my point today, my beloved blog readers, is that summer is here and it's that time when we head to the beach and slop on tons of sunscreen (well most of us anyway) and try to get a tan without burning. You may have been hearing the news lately about the damage that sunscreen - which is supposed to protect you - is now doing to us.

This just hit my inbox today from the Environmental Working Group. It is a list of the best and worst of the sunscreens on the market and it is worth taking the time to look at.

Of the 500 beach and sports sunscreens that EWG analyzed for our 2010 Sunscreen Guide, we can only recommend 8 percent. Between the false sense of security from sunscreens with an SPF of 50 or higher, and new data linking vitamin A to accelerated development of skin tumors and lesions, most products don't live up to their hype. In fact, EWG found that wearing a hat and shirt in the sun should be your first line of defense, then using an EWG recommended sunscreen.

The EWG has compiled a list of the "top-rated" sunscreens and the "hall of shame."  I looked at the hall of shame and I own some of them. But since they are known as "hormone disruptors" they are hitting the bottom of my trash can now!

I urge you all to do the same. Take a look, see if you own any of these and see it as an opportunity to lessen your load and clean out your cabinet.

We don't want any hormones being disrupted so you know what to do next! Check out the list of safe ones and head to the store before the holiday weekend to get some.

If you think your store won't carry it, trying DrugStore.com They have a lot of good products.

So have some really, really safe fun in the sun this weekend. Remember, your skin is the largest organ in your body so be nice to it and treat it well.

And as an FYI about the EWG:

The mission of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. EWG is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles.

Here is a link to info about the EWG's funding and where it comes from: http://www.ewg.org/about/funding