“Have you always had that?” asked my ex-boyfriend with a quizzical look, peering at me as we stood in line for greasy hamburgers and fries. He’d known my face for two decades and was confused by the interloper brown spot that had appeared on my left cheek, its borders quickly spreading. The answer was no, I haven’t always had it.
It’s a that blossomed on my face over the past few years, flourishing and expanding due to my laziness around dabbing on daily. I’d had a dermatologist pal check it out with his li’l loupe device a few years prior and he dubbed it non-threatening. Still, this was the final kick in the pants to do what I’d been putting off for years: a full mole-mapping.
As a pale person of British descent, I’m covered in a smattering of freckles, moles and various other dots and dapples. Unlike many of my millennial peers, I never turned to tanning beds and didn’t lie out due to a propensity to burn, thankfully, but my lack of daily sunscreen and proper protection during the summer months and tropical holidays meant I had my fair share of discolouration by age 40. You’d think sun stupidity would decrease with each subsequent generation, as the pile of evidence grows, showing how crucial sun protection is in .
But, in fact, there’s a due to misinformation proliferating online. Some TikTok videos proclaim sunscreen to be toxic or cause a vitamin D deficiency; others warn that it is more dangerous than sun damage itself. Some even swear that it�.
