I normally don’t write too much about skin issues other than acne, but this experience really made me think about how important it is to keep at least your face out of the direct sunlight as much as possible as you age. My skin seems to be especially susceptible to photo damage (which is damage caused by the sun, such as age spots, liver spots, and fine lines and wrinkles and generally uneven pigmentation and tone).  This is probably mostly due to my genetics. You see, I’m all European. I’m part Irish – fifty percent to be exact – and my father is German and Austrian and some other European stuff, but basically I”m pretty pale skinned, and the sun really doesn’t “tan” me very well, intead I get burnt easily. I’ve recently learned that it’s important not to stay out of the sun entirely because you can make yourself vitamin D deficient, so I really don’t think it’s a good idea to avoid the sun like a vampire would. That’s just too extreme, and you are depriving yourself of the best way for your body to attain and absorb the most readily bio-available form of vitamin D there is. Vitamin D is absolutely crucial to your well being, as it is being discovered. It is essential to help ward off cancer from forming and also essential for a properly functioning immune system, among other things. However, your face is actually one of the worst areas of your body for vitamin D absorption from the sun. For some reason, when you get sun on your face, it’s been discovered that this sun exposure does not provide very much vitamin D at all, so lather up the SPF on the face as much as you can, because it will get sun damaged if you don’t. I was out in the real, full on sun for about two hours when I was visiting California recently.  I actually had my SPF on, an SPF 15 lotion as well as a layer of foundation with an SPF of 8 in it, and I still emerged from the sun soaking with a ton of new freckles. I also noticed that two of the small age spots on the side of my face that I’m always trying to get rid of were noticeably darker, so there went all my efforts to get rid of them via at home microdermabrasion and chemical peels. The bottom line is, keep your face as protected as you can from the sun. This experience demonstrated to me the extreme damage that the sun can do to the skin on your face if you’re not diligent in protecting it.

Original Source of One Day in Sun Gave Me Freckles/Age Spots!