Why Do I Even Bother. . .

. . . putting on sunblock?  Really.  When I was a kid I never wore it.  Rarely burned.  As an adult, I've tried to be more "health conscious" and remember to apply sunblock before going outside to work.  I've had so many sunburns as an adult (especially the last 10 years or so) that I can't even count them all.

Yesterday, I put on sunblock in preparation for working outside in the garden.  The weather was beautiful, I had much to plant, and I was planning a marathon gardening session.  After three hours, I came in for lunch, then applied more sunblock before heading back to the garden.  Three hours later, I returned to the house to wash up in preparation for going to a graduation open house.

Boy, was I not amused when I shucked my dirty gardening clothes and stood in front of the bathroom mirror while waiting for the water in the shower to warm up to tolerable (it seems to spend the first several minutes at may-possibly-cause-hypothermia temperatures).  All my judicious use of sunblock got me was red, red, red!  You can definitely see where my sleeveless top and my shorts were, because those are the only parts of me that aren't the color of strawberry ice cream!

I swear!!  Why do I even bother with sunblock?  Most of it is so perfumy it makes my eyes water, my nose run, and causes me to sneeze. Constantly.  Unless I immediately wash it off, and even then it takes a good half hour for my sinuses to return to normal. Many brands either make me itch or make my skin sting. I can't use the cheapy sunblock, no.  I have to hunt down the expensive non-allergenic, non-perfumed kinds.  Most of which go on like liquid chalk and even with rubbing it in well I still get several shades whiter than my natural skin tone because of the zinc and titanium oxide. Nothing like walking around looking ghostly. I even wear the high SPF stuff (which was unthinkable back in my high school days--the era of rubbing on baby oil to toast yourself to a nice golden brown!)  And what do I get for all that hassle?  Sun burnt!!

Ugh!  I think what I need is some nice head to toe gauzy, off white apparel to wear while working outside.  Something that will let the breeze through, so I don't end up dying of heat stroke--a sweaty   mess in the garden--yet won't get me sunburned.  Kind of a hundred years ago sort of summer clothes.

Except me and white don't mix well. Especially because chlorine bleach also makes my skin itch and burn.  White just doesn't stay white, and never returns to white here.  Maybe if I boil it in a big pot, over a roaring fire in the yard, like they did way back then when people wore white and natural colored summer clothing, without bleaching the life out of it, maybe that would work.

Because sunblock just ain't doing it for me.