Who are you?

Hi! My name is Adrian and I am a stay at home dad. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, have been married for 16 years, have three kids, and also two rabbits. I’m interested in all sorts of things that affect my family such as technology and the environment (to some degree), and I also think I have a unique combination of time and skillset which helps me do fun projects like these when my kids are at school.

Why sunscreen?

This all just started one day after having gone to my annual physical checkup, my doctor asked if I had been using sunscreen. I replied that I didn’t (I had just turned 40, and still considered myself young!), whereupon he then proceeded to show me pictures on his computer showing the effects sun had on the faces of older (*GASP*) Asian men, sun spots or age spots he called them. Age spots tend to develop around the age of 40 and are the result of the skins repeated unprotected exposure to the suns harmful UV rays. Eventually, these UV rays cause the melanocytes in the skin to produce more melanin which tends to clump and form those unsightly age spots. Scared straight by those google images, I then began applying sunscreen to my face every morning.

“you’re now getting older, you should use sunscreen to avoid those age spots.”

-My doctor

Being a stay at home dad, I didn’t really think much about the sunscreen I used and just opted for whatever sunscreen stuff my wife was using at the time. I applied it every day and after about a week, I noticed that my skin really did look much more uniform and even! I don’t consider myself vain in any sense of the word as I shop mostly whatever clothing they have at Costco or whatever my wife happens to pick up on sale at Old Navy. However, I did notice a positive change to my face after using a daily sunscreen (just one application in the morning), which I can say made me look better (even my wife told me so!).

During this time I met up with some friends who had just come back from Hawaii and I excitedly told them about my new and improved face using sunscreen. This came as no surprise to them since they have been using sunscreen religiously for years, but what came out of this conversation tickled my curiosity. My friends relayed an anecdote about how they bought a sunscreen brand they typically use (Biore Watery Essence for those of you wondering), and for whatever reason they both ended up getting sunburned (think lobster red sunburned). They mentioned the specific bottle they purchased may have been a counterfeit product (as it was sold at a discount online) and they threw it away. They purchased it again at a reputable retailer and had no issues afterwards.

Prior to this, I never really gave much thought about sunscreen and like most people believed the higher the SPF, the higher the protection, and thus the longer I could wait between reapplication. I pretty much just thought sunscreen differences were the varying SPF and delivery form (aerosol vs cream). I was intrigued about the reason why one sunscreen would work differently even if it had the same SPF rating. Why would one sunscreen with an equal SPF rating be so functionally different from another of the same SPF rating? Is the difference the amount of active ingredients? Are there active ingredients other than zinc oxide or titanium dioxide?

That was it, I had to find out more.

The insane world of sunscreen

Recently, I built a solar powered autonomous boat that launched from Half Moon Bay and made it halfway to Hawaii (if you want, you can read about it here) just because I wanted to know if I could do something like that. It took me two years of learning about everything from fiber-glassing, to programming, to electronics design before its final voyage. It was quite a learning curve to say the least, but I knew what I was getting into the moment I decided to start. With sunscreen however, I didn’t realize the learning curve would be so great… and so full of crap. The world of sunscreen seems to me to be a quagmire of unsubstantiated opinions on mommy blogs, cosmetic marketing literature from manufacturers, and confusing non real-world technical jargon from the FDA.

Applying my skillset to curiosity

I soon realized the only way I could hope to evaluate sunscreen is if I had a testing station and method capable of reproducing results in a consistent manner which was useful in comparing one sunscreen against another. So I built one and created this website in the hopes it will help others to navigate the world of sunscreen.

Like the saying goes, “if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.”