Tanlines Fade but Pictures are Forever
Posted on August 22, 2009 by Ching under Health.
Well, at least that’s true for digital pictures anyway. Unless your hard-drive crashes.. which is why I store all my pictures on Flickr.
Anyhow, this tanline (which makes it look like I’m wearing thigh-high socks) was the result of spending all day at the Midwest Rockfest last Saturday. It was more pronounced (and more red) a few days back. Apparently, brown (or yellow) people like me burn too if out in the sun for too long. I always thought being immune to the Kansas sun was one of the perks of being exotic. After last Saturday, I discovered the limits of my immunity: about 4 hours.
Brian had insisted on putting sunblock on. I helped him apply some on his body, but I was stubborn and refused to put some on myself. I’d never burned before. I usually just get darker after a considerable amount of time under the sun. I figured I could do without sunblock, specially since I wanted to get darker anyway.
Later that evening, even though the temperature had cooled down a lot, my skin still felt hot. It wasn’t as hot as it was in the afternoon when it felt like you could fry an egg on me, but my skin still felt really hot. When we got home, we slathered some blue aloe gel stuff on me to cool me down. The next day, however, my skin was still red and warm to the touch. The telltale signs of being sunburnt.
By Monday, my skin had turned from red to brown. I skipped the whole peeling phase. At least, that was nice. I hate it when your skin starts peeling after a sunburn because you inevitably leave skin flakes everywhere you go.
Anyway, I learned an important lesson last weekend. I learned that just like normal people, I will burn too if out in the sun for too long. I just have a higher threshold than others. Brian can last about 15 to 30 minutes, while I could go up to 4 hours. After that, though, there better be sunblock around otherwise I’ll be red for a couple of days. I know now not to push the limits of my sun immunity.
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