The Odds of Getting Ugly

I know that sun protection is not necessarily a heated topic for most people, but it is for me. I get steamed when celebs like Alicia Silverstone dismiss the need for SPF with a lame excuse about needing vitamin D. Get vitamin D from a vitamin, or from going without sunglasses a few minutes a day (you absorb a lot of it through your eyes) but wear your sunscreen. So when I was at a party recently, and clueless, very tanned woman started defending her complete ignorance about sunscreen, I almost lost it. She was so smug, and so flippant, and had such an obnoxious attitude that I felt myself get angrier and angrier. As the rest of the group tried to reason with her, citing stories about melanoma rates and the dangers of unprotected sun exposure, she grew more and more defiant. I chimed in once, and then shut up and ignored the conversation because I didn't want to lose it. Once I got home and replayed the conversation in my my head, I almost kicked myself. I had the perfect retort, but the moment had passed! I have one important thing in common with this girl - vanity - but I never played that card.

Let's face it. Few of us really believe we are going to get skin cancer. When you're olive-skinned, with a Mediterranean background like I am, you believe it even less. Even though people of all races and ethnicities get skin cancer, those of us with darker skin are lulled into a false sense of security. But there's one thing most women have in common: a desire to avoid aging. So rather than pointing out the chances of getting skin cancer, I should have pointed out something that she would have found much more fearful: the odds of being ugly. And they're pretty high. 100% in fact, since doctors now say that sun exposure and not natural aging is the number one reason we get wrinkles.

What I could have said, that may have stopped her in her tracks, is: "Forget cancer. No one really thinks they're going to get cancer. I'm more worried about looking ugly. If you keep that up, in ten years, the skin on your face is going to look like the skin on your elbows." I think that would have shut her up. Sigh.

So the next time someone shrugs off skin cancer, play the ugly card. You might just be saving their life.