This article is based on an expert interview with Margareth Pierre-Louis, MD, conducted by wikiHow Staff Editors. Dr. Margareth Pierre-Louis is a board certified Dermatologist and Dermatopathologist, Physician Entrepreneur, and the Founder of Twin Cities Dermatology Center and Equation Skin Care in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Twin Cities Dermatology Center is a comprehensive dermatology clinic treating patients of all ages through clinical dermatology, cosmetic dermatology, and telemedicine. Equation Skin Care was created to provide the best in evidence-based, natural skin care products. Dr. Pierre-Louis earned a BS in Biology and an MBA from Duke University, an MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, completed a residency in dermatology at the University of Minnesota, and completed a dermatopathology fellowship at Washington University in St Louis. Dr. Pierre-Louis is board certified in dermatology, cutaneous surgery, and dermatopathology by the American Boards of Dermatology and Pathology.
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You want a healthy summer glow, but you also know that too much sun exposure comes with risks, like skin cancer. Is it possible to tan safely? How long should you tan for? What SPF sunscreen should you wear? In this video, dermatologist Margareth Pierre-Louis answers your questions and teaches you how to reduce your risk when tanning and avoid the mistakes that are most damaging to your skin.
Number one, they stay out too long. Tanning is when we truly try to use the body's own energies of giving you a darker glow of the skin by exposing it for a certain length of time to the sun. If you overdo it, if you're out there in the sun for too long, then you can start to actually cause damage to the skin. The skin can start to blister off and cause redness, pain, soreness, and even increase the risk of skin cancer. Another thing that people can do sometimes with tanning, they believe that they don't have to wear any sunscreen to tan. You can put a mild amount of sunscreen on, a thin layer, that will help reduce that damage that could happen to the skin and still end up with a tanning effect from it. But putting a thin layer of an SPF 30 is actually protective and will still give you that tanning result that you're looking for.
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