The Sunscreen Myth: What Your Summer Routine Is Missing
Are you sure sunscreen is the go-to solution for your body during the summer?
The sunscreen conversation has become so loud that most people never stop to ask what's actually happening to their skin in the summer. I think we've been pointing at the wrong target for years.
A couple of years ago, my research into sunscreen ingredients got me censored on social media and called a liar by a major outlet that later had to retract it. That experience pushed me further into a topic the system clearly doesn't want questioned.
Sunscreen is one small piece. Your skin is also responding to heat, sweat, chlorine, smoke, air conditioning, the seed oils in your diet, the LEDs in every room you walk into, and hours of blue light from screens before bed.
I want to talk about what your skin is actually asking for during the hottest months, why a damaged barrier often looks oily instead of dry, and what I changed in my own diet and home lighting that made the biggest difference.
You’ll Learn:
[0:00] Introduction
[3:00] Getting called a liar and banned from social media over sunscreen research
[5:28] Why your skin's relationship with the sun goes way beyond sunscreen
[7:40] The dehydration trap most people fall into during summer
[9:45] Damaged skin barriers don't always look dry, and the cycle that makes it worse
[13:21] Why two people in the same sun can have completely different experiences
[14:52] How giving up seed oils changed my sunburn response
[16:04] Artificial light may be doing more damage to your skin than sunlight does
[24:05] Coming back into your body and tuning into what your skin is asking for
Related Gubba Homestead Episodes:
Things Women Aren't Told About Healthcare Products and Screening Tests
Resources Mentioned:
Arvoti Sun Care Blend Tallow Balm
Arvoti Rose Revive Toning Mist
Hello, and welcome back to the Gubba Homestead Podcast. I'm Gubba, a first-time homesteader following in the footsteps of my homesteading forebears, where we talk about everything from homesteading to prepping and everything in between... but also the things that don't quite sit right when you really stop and look at them. The systems behind the systems. The patterns hiding in plain sight.
Today, we're diving into something that affects every single one of us throughout the summer months, yet most people never stop to think about what's actually happening beneath the surface.
Every year around this time, the conversation becomes almost impossible to avoid. Sunscreen. What SPF are you using? Which ingredients should you avoid? How often should you reapply? Which brand is safest? But what if we've become so focused on sunscreen that we've completely missed the bigger picture?
Because whether you wear sunscreen or not, your skin is dealing with far more than sunlight. It's dealing with heat, dehydration, inflammation, environmental stress, modern diets, artificial light exposure, and a whole host of factors that rarely get discussed.
When you really start pulling on this thread, you realize that summer skincare is about much more than simply blocking the sun. It's about understanding what the season itself is doing to your skin and how to support it through months of increased stress and exposure.
Before we jump in, I want to share something that's really close to my heart. A couple of years ago, I found myself right in the middle of the sunscreen conversation after spending countless hours researching ingredients and sharing what I was learning.
As many of you know, some of that content was heavily censored, which only made me want to dig deeper into the topic. That journey ultimately led me to create Arvoti's Tallow Sun Care Balm.
I wanted a nourishing summer skincare product made with simple ingredients for my family. Made with tallow, beeswax, and non-nano zinc, it has become one of our most-loved seasonal products. If you'd like to learn more, you can visit Arvoti.com. Now let's dive into today's episode.
So have you ever wondered what is really going on with your skin in the sunlight?
The reality is that your skin doesn't just experience sunlight. Your skin experiences heat. It experiences dehydration. It experiences sweat. It experiences wind, smoke, chlorine, saltwater, dust, dry air, and environmental stress.
It experiences long days outdoors followed by hours inside air-conditioned buildings. It experiences nutritional inputs from your diet and constant exposure to artificial light from screens and LEDs. Yet somehow we've reduced the entire summer skincare conversation down to one topic, as though sunscreen is the only thing standing between healthy skin and unhealthy skin.
One thing homesteading has taught me is that nature rarely operates through single causes. When a garden struggles, we don't immediately assume one thing is responsible. We look at the soil. We look at the weather. We look at water, sunlight, pests, nutrient availability, and countless other variables.
The human body works very much the same way. Skin health is not determined by one ingredient, one product, or one afternoon in the sun. It is constantly responding to dozens of inputs simultaneously. Summer simply magnifies many of those inputs all at once.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have about summer is that because they're sweating more, they assume they're hydrated. In reality, summer is one of the most dehydrating seasons of the year.
Every day your body is working to regulate temperature. Every time you sweat, your body is using valuable water and minerals to cool itself. Whether you're gardening, hiking, working outdoors, swimming, traveling, or simply enjoying the season, your hydration demands increase significantly.
Most people recognize thirst when they feel it. What they often don't recognize is what dehydration can look like in the skin. They notice their skin feels tighter. Fine lines appear more visible.
Their complexion looks dull. Their face feels sensitive. Sometimes their skin becomes rough. Sometimes it becomes oily. They assume they need a new skincare product when the skin may simply be asking for hydration and support.
FYI you can make a simple electrolyte drink with just water, some squeezed fruit like lemon or orange, a pinch of salt and baking soda, and tablespoon of honey or molasses. This provides electrolytes and trace minerals and is more favorable than just water.
The skin barrier is one of the most important yet least understood aspects of skin health. Think of it as the body's natural protective shield. A healthy barrier helps retain moisture while protecting against environmental stressors. When the barrier is functioning properly, skin tends to feel resilient, calm, and comfortable. But summer creates countless opportunities for barrier stress.
Chlorinated pools, dry winds, smoke, excessive cleansing, air conditioning, prolonged heat exposure, and environmental pollutants all contribute to moisture loss over time.
What's fascinating is that damaged skin barriers don't always look dry. Sometimes they look oily.
This is where many people get trapped in a cycle. Their skin becomes dehydrated, responds by producing more oil, and they interpret that oil as a signal that they need stronger cleansers or more aggressive products. The result is often even more barrier damage, more dehydration, and more irritation. Instead of supporting the skin, they end up fighting against it.
I think this is one of the reasons so many people feel frustrated with their skin during the summer months. They start adding more and more products trying to solve a problem without understanding what caused the problem in the first place. The skin becomes red, so they buy a product.
The skin becomes oily, so they buy another product. The skin becomes dry, so they buy another one. Before long they have an entire cabinet full of products while their skin continues asking for the same thing it wanted from the beginning: support.
Heat itself deserves far more attention than it receives. We spend enormous amounts of time talking about ultraviolet exposure, yet heat creates its own unique form of stress. Think about how your face feels after spending several hours outside on a ninety-degree day.
Even if you never burn, your skin often feels warm, flushed, and irritated. Blood vessels expand as the body attempts to cool itself. Water loss increases. Inflammation can increase. For individuals already prone to redness or sensitivity, heat alone can create significant challenges.
This is where I think the conversation becomes particularly interesting. We often discuss sun exposure as though every human responds exactly the same way. Yet anyone paying attention to health knows that's not true.
Two people can spend the same amount of time outdoors and have very different experiences. One burns quickly. One doesn't. One develops irritation. One feels energized. Genetics certainly matter, but I don't think we can ignore the role that diet may play as well.
Over the last several years there has been increasing discussion surrounding omega-6-rich seed oils and their potential impact on skin health. Modern diets contain dramatically higher levels of these oils than previous generations consumed.
Because these fats become incorporated into tissues throughout the body, including the skin, some researchers have suggested they may be more susceptible to oxidative stress when exposed to ultraviolet radiation.
While this area continues to be researched, it raises important questions. If our skin is built from the materials we consume, shouldn't we at least consider whether diet influences how skin responds to environmental stressors?
This is one reason I became so passionate about traditional foods. When I shifted away from highly processed foods and focused more on nutrient-dense foods like eggs, butter, raw dairy, quality meats, broth, and other ancestral foods, I noticed changes throughout my body. My skin felt calmer. Less reactive. More resilient.
That doesn't mean anyone can eat a certain diet and become immune to sunburn. But it does highlight something important. The sun and skin relationship begins long before we ever apply a product.
Another piece of this conversation that fascinates me is artificial light. We spend so much time discussing sunlight that we rarely stop to consider how much light exposure modern humans receive from completely unnatural sources. We wake up under artificial lights. We spend our days under LEDs. We stare at computers, tablets, phones, and televisions. Then we spend our evenings doing exactly the same thing.
Emerging research has begun exploring how certain wavelengths of visible light, particularly blue light, may contribute to oxidative stress within the skin. While the effects are not identical to ultraviolet radiation, it raises an important question that very few people seem interested in asking.
Why do we spend so much time discussing the effects of natural sunlight while almost completely ignoring the unprecedented amount of artificial light exposure that modern people experience every single day?
The average person now spends most of their waking hours surrounded by LEDs. They're in our homes, offices, schools, vehicles, televisions, smartphones, tablets, and computers. Many people wake up and immediately look at a bright screen.
They spend eight or more hours working under artificial lighting, then spend their evenings watching television or scrolling social media before finally looking at another screen right before bed. When you really stop and think about it, the amount of artificial light exposure we experience today would have been unimaginable even a generation ago.
Most people know that excessive screen time can contribute to eye strain, headaches, and sleep disruption, but fewer people realize that our eyes and skin are constantly interacting with light as biological signals. Light doesn't just help us see. It helps regulate hormones, sleep cycles, energy production, and countless processes throughout the body.
This is one reason so many people report improvements in sleep quality when they reduce blue light exposure in the evening or replace harsh LEDs with warmer incandescent lighting. The body is constantly receiving information from the environment, and light is one of the most powerful signals it receives.
For thousands of years, people experienced bright sunlight during the day and darkness in the evening. Today, many people experience the opposite. They spend most of the day indoors under artificial lighting and then flood their eyes with bright screens late into the night. It shouldn't surprise us that our bodies sometimes struggle to keep up.
I became particularly interested in this topic when I started replacing LEDs throughout our home. Initially, I was focused on sleep and circadian rhythms, but what surprised me was how much better I felt overall. My eyes felt less fatigued at the end of the day. I experienced fewer headaches. It made me realize how dramatically our environment has changed in a relatively short period of time.
Our eyes are especially vulnerable to constant exposure from screens and artificial lighting because they're receiving these signals for hours upon hours every single day. Many people now experience dry eyes, eye fatigue, blurry vision after prolonged screen use, difficulty falling asleep, and increased light sensitivity. Some people spend more time looking at screens than they do looking at the natural world.
Again, I'm not suggesting that technology is inherently bad or that everyone should throw their devices away. I simply think it's worth acknowledging that we are participating in one of the largest environmental shifts in human history, and we're still learning how those changes affect our bodies
I don't think the answer is fear. I don't think the answer is hiding from technology or avoiding modern life. I simply think awareness matters. Just as we think about the food we eat, the water we drink, and the products we put on our skin, perhaps it's worth thinking about the light environment we're exposing ourselves to every single day.
When I started homesteading, one of the biggest changes I noticed was how much time I spent outdoors. I wasn't just outside occasionally. I was outside every day. Caring for animals. Gardening. Harvesting. Building. Walking. Watching the seasons unfold. That experience fundamentally changed how I viewed skincare.
Instead of seeing skincare as a battle against nature, I started seeing it as a way to support my skin while living in nature. That may sound like a small distinction, but it completely changed my approach. Rather than constantly asking how I could control my skin, I started asking how I could support it. Rather than treating my skin like an enemy that needed fixing, I began treating it like a living organ that was responding intelligently to its environment.
What I think gets overlooked most often is what happens after you've spent time outside. Everyone talks about preparation. Very few people talk about recovery.
Yet recovery matters everywhere else in life.
Athletes understand recovery. Farmers understand recovery. Gardeners understand recovery. Muscles recover after exercise. Soil recovers after a growing season. The body recovers after stress. Why would skin be any different?
After spending hours outdoors, your skin is often warm, dehydrated, and depleted. Even if you never experienced a sunburn, your skin may still be dealing with increased water loss and environmental stress. This is especially true during the hottest months of the year when the combination of heat, sweat, wind, and environmental exposure can leave skin feeling completely different than it did just a few hours earlier.
I think many people miss this because they only pay attention to dramatic changes. They notice a sunburn. They notice peeling skin. They notice severe irritation. What they don't notice are the smaller signals. The slight tightness in the skin. The subtle feeling of dryness. The increase in redness. The feeling that their skin simply looks tired. Those signals are often the skin asking for support before bigger problems develop.
This is where I've found that simple supportive skincare often outperforms complicated routines. Rather than attacking the skin with more aggressive ingredients, I focus on replenishing what the skin may have lost. Hydration, moisture, and comfort.
One product I reach for constantly throughout the summer is my Rose Mist Toner. It's one of those products that sounds simple until you start using it consistently. After gardening, working outdoors, harvesting from the garden, caring for animals, or spending time in the sun, that cooling mist feels incredible.
But beyond simply feeling refreshing, it helps support hydration while soothing skin that may be feeling stressed from heat and environmental exposure. One thing I love about rose hydrosol is that it feels gentle. Summer skin often doesn't want ten complicated steps. It doesn't want to be overwhelmed. It wants support. It wants hydration. It wants comfort.
I think this is one of the reasons so many people are rediscovering simpler approaches to skincare, especially when it comes to sunscreen. The more complicated our lives become, the more appealing simplicity becomes.
We spend our days bombarded by information, advertisements, ingredients we can't pronounce, and endless products promising miraculous results. Yet many people find that when they simplify, their skin often responds positively.
I also think we've underestimated the role that stress plays in skin health. Summer is supposed to be relaxing, but for many people it becomes one of the busiest times of year. Travel, activities, events, social gatherings, projects, vacations, gardening, food preservation, and endless responsibilities can create significant stress. Stress affects sleep. Sleep affects recovery.
Recovery affects skin. Everything is connected.
When we zoom out and look at the bigger picture, it becomes clear that skin health is really a reflection of overall health. The skin is constantly communicating with us. It reflects hydration status. It reflects nutritional status. It reflects stress levels. It reflects sleep quality. It reflects environmental exposure. It reflects the choices we make every day.
That's why I think the conversation around summer skincare deserves to be much bigger than sunscreen. Sunscreen is only one small piece of a much larger puzzle, but also can be an incredibly toxic on.
If we're going to talk about healthy skin, we should also talk about hydration. We should talk about nutrition. We should talk about artificial light. We should talk about sleep. We should talk about recovery. We should talk about supporting the skin barrier. We should talk about creating an environment where the skin can thrive.
What I've learned over the years is that healthy summer skin is not about avoiding the sun. It's about supporting the skin's natural ability to adapt. It's about hydration. It's about nourishment. It's about recovery. It's about paying attention to the signals your skin is giving you. It's about become in tune with your body.
When we start looking at skin through that lens, the conversation becomes much bigger than sunscreen. Instead of asking how we can wage war against the summer sun, we begin asking how we can support our bodies through it. We begin viewing skincare as part of a larger lifestyle that includes nutritious food, adequate hydration, time outdoors, proper recovery, and simple supportive products that help the skin do what it was designed to do.
Summer should be enjoyed. It should be spent making memories, growing gardens, walking barefoot in the grass, swimming in lakes, watching sunsets, preserving food from the harvest, caring for animals, and spending time with the people we love. We should never fear a season or the life-giver in the sky. My goal through summer is to support my skin so I can fully enjoy everything summer has to offer. It's not very enjoyable when you have a nasty sunburn.
And I think once we start viewing how we can support and recover our skin, this whole area of life we have been brainwashed in changes.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Gubba Homestead Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love for you to share it with a friend or family member who might benefit from hearing a different perspective on summer skincare. And if you're looking for simple, nourishing products to support your skin throughout the season, you can always learn more at Arvoti.com.
Until next time, keep growing, keep learning, keep questioning, and keep building the life you want, one intentional step at a time.
