Anyone who is around me for more than five seconds knows that I am positively evangelical about sunscreen. This may be because I suffered the kind of industrial strength acne in my teenage years that required not one, but two courses of Roaccutane, leaving my skin painfully photosensitve, or it may be because I'm abalone pale, but I do not fathom how anyone could just 'not wear' sunscreen. Sun damaged skin looks horrible, blotchy, red and angry, and I go to many lengths to avoid it. The first thing I do after I shower is coat myself thoroughly in the stuff, the Cancer Council's Everyday lotion on everything below my shoulders, Olay's light SPF 30 on everything above, and even then I feel guilty if I don't reapply throughotu the day. The sun will fuck up your skin for reals, and I just can't understand why anyone wouldn't take a few seconds to protect themselves. Yet still. Still. I see my friends take their beautiful, young, not-yet-ruined skin out with naked, with no micronised titanium or avobenzone to shield themselves from the big ball of radiation in the sky, and it breaks my overly-controlling heart, it really does.

So you can understand that, when I read Natalie Angier's article on skin I felt oddly vindicated.

As I survey the sharp tan lines and flaking faces that surround me, I see that I am hardly alone. When it comes to how we treat our birthday suits, it seems, we are like 2-year-olds: more concerned with the wrapping and ribbons than with the present itself. We spend billions of dollars a year on makeup and skin-care products, yet we’re slipshod about the one measure that dermatologists emphasize is essential for the long-term health, strength and bounce of our skin: guarding it against ultraviolet radiation.

That means applying full-spectrum sunscreen every day of the year, and by the gob, not the gossamer, and reapplying it later even if you’re in a bad mood and don’t feel like it. It also means skipping the tanning salons, forever decoupling the words “fit” and “tanned,” and retreating from the fiercest light of midday, back to a shady oasis, where you can contemplate the complexity, multidexterity and deep beauty of the organ called skin.