Back in the day when Speedo one-pieces were cool, I had no interest in tanning. Although I fought through “sunscreen smear down” sessions with my mom, my skin was still, for the most part, shielded from the sun all summer long. It wasn’t until my friends started wearing bikinis and lots of Hawaiian tropic, that my Irish complexion got it’s first taste of sunburn. I quickly realized that getting the perfect tan wasn’t really in the cards for me…well unless I wanted to look like a leather handbag years later.

It’s scary how many times my skin has peeled, even blistered. I’ve accumulated many freckles, and one of them could easily be cancerous. At least that’s what I hear. Freckles appearing after a sunburn have been associated with an increased risk of melanoma skin cancer – the fatal kind. And even worse, it’s been estimated that nearly half of all Americans who live to age 65 will develop skin cancer at least once, according to MedicineNet.com.

Clearly we are all guilty of neglecting our skin for vanity’s sake. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy that bronzed glow? But ten, fifteen years from now, we’ll be kicking ourselves when the wrinkles, blotchy sun spots or melanoma develop.

So what can we do now to prevent further sun damage? Read More »

So yesterday I got my first sunburn of the year. (At least, I think it’s a sunburn – it may also be a result of my drunken face-plant…) Honestly, though, I’m not gonna complain ’cause Syracuse hasn’t seen the sun in months. I am, however, going to dust off the sun products that have been under my bed for the past 8 months.

If you want to prevent painful burns, wrinkles, sunspots and , most importantly, cancer, you really need to remember to preserve your skin. And preserving your skin means more than slopping on some SPF 4 when you lay at the beach. The sun can harm your skin at any time, so learn from my burned mistake (I was drinkin’ a beer outside) and protect yourself.

Below are some makeup products that include SPF built right in! I’m not suggesting this is a substitute for using sunscreen, but if you’re just going outside quickly, or want to add some extra protection you gotta try these great finds. Unless, of course, you want to look like this when you’re 30. Read More »

If you just got back from spring break and resemble a lobster, don’t  worry, while I was bitter about your tropical vacation I will not mock you.

I actually feel quite sorry for you; sunburns are the worst! They hurt, they peel, and as if the pain isn?t enough, well you also look like someone put you in a frying pan for 5 hours.  (I bet you wish you had listened to your mother and put on some SPF!)

But since that sunscreen will not help you now, here are some tips to take care of your toasted skin and cover it up (as much as possible, anyway!).

Basic Care Tips:

-Take cool showers and apply cool face cloths to your burned areas. This won’t help the healing much, but it will make you feel so. much. better.

-Don’t wear perfumes, or oily makeup/products. These will only irritate your skin more, making you even more uncomfortable.

-Keep yourself covered – loose clothing is best.

-If your burn is more serious or your skin is bubbling, you need to see a doctor to treat the burn!

The best thing for your skin now is aloe vera, a plant with sunburn healing powers.  You can find aloe in gels, toners and lotion.  Here are some aloe products that can help soothe, repair and reduce the redness of your burn. Read More »

Spring Break is right around the corner, and I’m hoping to escape from the freezing winter temperatures on a warm, sunny beach somewhere. If you’re headed to the beach like me, make sure you bring all the essentials with you:

1. Sunglasses - With the sun reflecting off the ocean and the sand, you need dark shades to protect your eyes. Plus, you can check out the hotties playing football down by the water without looking like a total creep.

2. A magazine or trashy novel – It’ll keep you entertained when you’re lounging in the sun, and it’s also a good way to look like you’re doing something else when you’re really staring at afore-mentioned hotties.

3. Sunblock – Again, seems totally obvious, but the LAST thing you want is to come back from your vacay looking like a lobster. Not to mention that you’re putting yourself in danger for skin cancer without it!

4. Beach-friendly makeup -If you can’t go out without makeup, even at the beach, know that your regular makeup routine isn’t going to hold up to the heat, sand, and water, so just keep it simple with some basics: tinted moisturizer (don’t forget the SPF!) and tinted lip balm or an all-over color stick to keep you looking fresh and naturally pretty all day (like this one from E.L.F.).

5. A cute cover-up – A tunic or minidress is perfect, because it’s small enough to fit into your bag, and you can throw on over your bathing suit if you and your friends decide to browse the beachside shops or grab some much needed margaritas. Read More »

So you are not going on spring break… I share your pain. I will be returning home, where it is also cold, to substitute teach bratty kids instead of drinking pina coladas in the sun. FML.

It sucks listening to everyone talk about their plans, but it will suck more when they all come back with sweet beach tans, and I, well, still glow in the dark. Seriously, the other day my best friend called me pasty (harsh, but true).

And this, my friends, is why I am looking for a bottled glow.

Tanning beds scare me with their cancerous connotations. Spray tans scare me too; I don’t want to look like I have a bad case of Lindsey Lohan. So I am going to suggest to you some of the best self tanners out there. I know – self-tanners sound pretty intimidating as well. I will admit I had a horror story experience with one in the 8th grade. Here’s me, so excited to wear my new green halter top, turned totally orange, passed my crush walking down the street. Ultimate humiliation. But, don’t let that turn you off of self tanners! That situation was caused by a serious lack of knowledge about what I was doing or what kind of product to use.

The great thing about the products below is that while they are not an instant bronze color, they will gradually give you a natural looking, healthy tanned glow. Hopefully this will help you keep up with your Spring Breakin’ roommates without coming back to campus looking like the orange eighth grade version of me. Read More »

Summer. What a delicious season. From the fruit to the fruity cocktails, everything seems so much fresher in the warm summer sun (well, everything besides our under-arms). Everything seems so much easier (besides the monthly bikini waxes). Everything is just so much…better (except the condition of our intensive-care inducing sunburns).We love the summer; really, we do. But, just like the killer hangover that comes after an awesome night of Sake Bombing, summer does have some downsides. Our writers weigh in on their least favorite parts of the season:

Sarah – NYU: Being drenched with sweat before I even leave my apartment in the morning. Gross.

Stacy Kidd: The weather; it just loves to pour buckets on me when the forecaster predicts sun, and conversely make me sweat buckets when rain is expected. Fantastic.

Diana Vilibert: Cute summer dresses that end in discomfort, thanks to inner-thigh chafing. (What, just me?)

Kate Bean: Sweating in my knee pit…or wait… is it “leg pit”? Read More »

My mother is 100% Italian. My father, a 100% Irish. My brother got my mother’s olive skin tone: the two of them could sit outside for hours, lathering up in baby oil and bake to a beautiful golden brown. I was the fortunate one (insert sarcastic undertone here) who got my father’s Irish skin. The two of us can’t go to a windy afternoon baseball game without using SPF 45, unless of course, we want to find ourselves covered in sunburn and blisters.

Last summer, I thought I was invincible when it came to the sun. My friends can get tan with SPF 4 or 8, so why couldn’t I? On two various occasions, I felt the effects of not listening to the realistic side of my brain in terms of summer sunshine. I spent a week in June in San Antonio, Texas, where it was roughly 95 degrees every day. As this was a more family-oriented – go out to dinner, do family related things – sunbathing took a back seat, until the last dreaded day, when I thought it was appropriate to lay at the pool, for three solid hours, with nothing – and I mean, not a drop of sunscreen – on my body. Read More »

When I was younger, I was fan of saying to my more melanin challenged friends when they offered me sunscreen, “I don’t need that! I don’t burn, I’m black!”

Oh how very wrong I was. It’s not that sunburn is all that different when you’re black, it’s just way more embarrassing. And way less attractive.

The first time I got burned by my hated enemy the sun was in Hawaii. Proof that you should screen up even on cloudy overcast days. The day albeit warm, was gray — but those wicked rays got me anyway. I didn’t know what it was at first. My shoulders itched and burned. I thought I was having some allergic reaction to something in the Hawaiian air. My mom took one look and said, “Ha! You got sunburned!”

The second time it happened I was in Africa and that was even more unbearable for different reasons. After that I decided that the sun and I just aren’t friends. Read More »

[Editor's Note: New York Magazine does these Sex Diaries that are sometimes cool, sometimes lame. Sometimes they're interesting portrayals of every day life, and sometimes they make it seem like EVERYONE in New York City is having copious amounts of crazy sex -- which isn't always the case, btw. What would happen, I wondered, if some of CC's writers blogged about their sex life for a week? Would it be cooler? Funnier? More believable?

Let's see...]

DAY ONE

7:05 a.m. Boyfriend wakes me up to kiss me before he goes to work, like he does every morning. Like every morning, I feel guilty about my morning breath, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

3:45 Boyfriend comes home early and suggests a quickie.

3:46 Boyfriend catches my unenthusiastic response and tells me never mind. I feel awful, as I do every time I turn him down, but I’ve been cleaning all day without a shower and I had just finished an hour of wii fit so I was sore. I promise him that I’ll make it up to him later that night.

1:22 a.m. Come home from seeing a friend’s band play. Still too sore and tired for sex, so I offer him a blow job as soon as we get home. Read More »

When the weather heats up, little shorts get pulled out of storage, and you double your daily dose of sit-ups so you can look that much hotter lounging on the sand, there’s a good chance your skin might start breaking out. While it totally sucks, there are a few easy fixes that can clear you up before you can say, “Of course I’ll be having another Mojito.”

I can most definitely vouch for these methods too. When I noticed a few clogged pores around my T-zone a couple of days ago, instead of going into crisis mode and lamenting how life could be so cruel, I made a few simple changes and things are already looking up.

You need to be careful of two things: sun and sweat.

Sun: Don’t think baking under the sun is good for your skin. Even if you don’t care about dying from skin cancer, the sun doesn’t clear up acne. It only burns the top-most layer of skin and doesn’t get to the heart of the cause of acne—the clogged pore. Read More »