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Now that summer has officially arrived, it’s important to protect your skin against the sun every single day.
While you should always remember that any person can get skin cancer on any part of their body, certain skin tones are more prone to developing it in specific areas.
Based on your skin tone, here are the places you should pay a little extra attention to:
Fair/Pale
It probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise that people with fair skin are generally prone to all three forms of deadly skin cancer—melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma—the most out of any skin tone. Your light skin makes it easy to burn literally anywhere on your body, even in places you never even thought could be exposed to the sun. To protect yourself, apply sunscreen every day, and don’t miss any small spots—like your eyelids, hairline, ears, scalp, and around your lips.
Medium
If you have a medium skin tone, then you probably tan very easily in the summer. While you may not look dark all year, your skin tends to tan quickly and evenly once those summer months roll around. This is your greatest weakness! People who tan easily without burning first think they’re immune to skin cancer. This simply isn’t true. Again, make sure to put sunscreen on before leaving the house, especially around your hairline, eyelids, ears, and lips.
Tan/Olive
Unlike people with a medium skin tone, you don’t tan easily—because you already are tan naturally. While you may not be actively lying out in the sun to darken your complexion, you also probably don’t think you need to wear sunscreen, since you don’t burn. However, according to Women’s Health, melanoma (the deadliest form of skin cancer) most often occurs in Asians, Filipinos, Indonesians, and native Hawaiians. In individuals with tan/olive skin tones, doctors often find melanoma in strange spots, like the palms or soles—even underneath the fingernails.
Deep/Dark
Though Caucasians are most prone to skin cancer, it’s most deadly to African Americans. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, this is generally because skin cancer in individuals with darker skin tones isn’t caught until it’s already in its later stages. That’s why it’s so important for dark-skinned people to get every single skin abnormality checked out by a doctor. Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer among African Americans and Asian Indians, according to Women’s Health. Again, no matter how dark you are, sunscreen is a must!
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