Comments on: Does Visible Light Cause Skin Damage? And How to Protect Against It https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/ The science of beauty, explained simply Fri, 29 Nov 2024 12:45:30 +0000 hourly 1 By: Chelsea Kenna https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-332674 Fri, 29 Nov 2024 12:45:30 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-332674 In reply to Ally McBeagle.

Am curious about this as well, as someone who is currently doing Dr-prescribed phototherapy for a still-undiagnosed skin condition!

Obviously I assume part of the answer would be that in phototherapy, the dosage is tightly controlled and adjusted based on your skin type. They start at a very low level and slowly increase it, and have different ranges they stay within based on your skin tone.

The exposure is also VERY brief. I’m still in the “ramping up” stage, but for example, one recent appointment was something like 26 seconds in the booth, and then the next time they increased it to 30-something seconds.

I will say that so far this seems to be the thing having the biggest impact on actually improving my skin issues after over 2 years of struggling with this.

]]> By: Priscilla https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-331968 Fri, 15 Nov 2024 12:52:50 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-331968 Really useful Michelle, as always. Really interesting to learn that physical sunscreens don’t produce the barrier effect that is commonly assumed. It will be really interesting to see how research develops in this area, and what products hit the market aiming to protect against it.

]]> By: Andrew https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-301955 Mon, 12 Feb 2024 02:59:54 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-301955 Thank you so much for all your incredibly insightful information. A normal person is so far removed from any of this stuff that without people like we’d have no way of ever getting even close to any information like this. I really appreciate it.

I do have a question, is the visible light spectrum worse in NZ/AUS as well, like the UV light? Or is it only the UV light that’s worse than in the north? And if so, how much worse is it, if that can be quantified in any way.
Thanks again!

]]> By: Michelle https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-182647 Thu, 16 Dec 2021 04:25:08 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-182647 In reply to Surbhi.

Do you have a link to the studies she cited for that? The 1991 Kaye study pretty convincingly shows that large particle zinc oxide doesn’t do much. There’s also some newer studies on what protects against visible light, and it keeps coming back to pigmentary TiO2 and iron oxides: https://labmuffin.com/how-to-protect-your-skin-against-blue-light-an-update-with-video/

]]> By: Michelle https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-182646 Thu, 16 Dec 2021 04:19:50 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-182646 In reply to Xuan.

I think I tried to estimate how much contribution would be from HEV, but I didn’t write out my reasoning in the post, and of course now I can’t remember what happened – thank you for picking it up!

]]> By: Xuan https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-178249 Tue, 30 Nov 2021 06:01:30 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-178249 Love your blog.

Regarding this paragraph, I think the final calculation is erroneous.

“The smallest amount of visible light that caused pigmentation in all of the dark skinned volunteers in the same study was 40 J/cm². Since visible light from the sun hits the Earth’s surface at around 0.050 W/cm² in summer in Texas and 1 W is 1 J/second, this translates to around 30 minutes of sunlight.”

Assuming “this” refers to “40 J/cm²,” when you divide this by 0.05 J/(cm²s), you get 800 s, which is ~13 minutes. Am I missing something?

]]> By: Surbhi https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-91231 Tue, 29 Dec 2020 10:29:42 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-91231 Hey Michelle! Thanks for the informative post. Dr Dray in her video said that non nano (particle size greater than 200nm zinc oxide) sunscreens can protect against visible light. And tinted sunscreens with iron oxides at greater than 3% protected against visible light, but non tinted sunscreen topped with makeup containing iron oxides did not have a protective effect.

Can you clarify if this information is correct? Thanks 🙂

]]> By: Michelle https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-68890 Tue, 03 Sep 2019 00:14:26 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-68890 In reply to Steph.

Yes! Vitamin A can definitely reverse skin photoaging – but tretinoin will likely work better.

]]> By: Steph https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-68798 Wed, 28 Aug 2019 05:49:24 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-68798 Hi thanx for explaining it so clearly!
Can already uv damaged skin be helped with retinol and vitamin c? I did a test in a beauty studio the other day and they said I have lots of bacteria on my skin, no wrinkles but I have uv damaged skin and that I can’t do anything about it.. 🙁 is that a fact?

]]> By: 7x Energy https://labmuffin.com/does-visible-light-cause-skin-damage-and-how-to-protect-against-it/#comment-68343 Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:02:57 +0000 https://labmuffin.com/?p=9016#comment-68343 Glad you cleared that up. Thanks!

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