Health experts have warned time and again about the dangers of too much exposure to the sun including increased risks for the deadly skin cancer. Unfortunately, many continue to ignore advisories to avoid sun exposure and to use protective clothing and sunscreen if exposure is unavoidable.
For people who think that frequent sunbathing is totally harmless, however, a video that shows the effects of the sun to the skin may just be able to persuade people to start stocking on sunscreens or even avoid the sun altogether.
The video, which was posted on Youtube and to date has already been viewed nearly 7 million times, reveals the effects of not using sunscreen. Entitled "How the Sun Sees You", the video shows people who appear to have healthy skin looking at themselves through an ultraviolet light camera that was designed to reveal the hidden damages caused by the sun to their skin.
"(I) found that people reacted so strongly and interestingly to seeing themselves in UV, I decided I should capture that," filmmaker Thomas Leveritt, who is behind the video said. "I messed around with various beamsplitter/teleprompter/coaxial rigs to get the right shot, before getting something which looked about right."
Many of those who viewed themselves on the special camera were surprised to find that their seemingly healthy and flawless face actually have damages that are not yet visible to the naked eye including freckles, dark spots and wrinkles, which have been likely caused by the rays of the sun known to injure the cells and damage the DNA.
Sun exposure could result in sunburn but the consequences could be more severe with long term and frequent exposure as it could lead to accelerated aging of the skin and even skin cancer, the most prevalent form of skin cancer in the U.S. that affects at least 61,000 individuals per year.
The video showed just how sunscreens actually protect people from the damaging ultraviolet rays of the sun by revealing how the sun "sees" a person using a sunscreen. As the participants apply sunscreen on their face in front of the ultraviolet camera, the part of their face that were covered with sunscreen were opaque and block which means that the sunscreen blocks the harmful ultraviolet rays.
Leveritt, who admitted that he offered his idea to skincare brands but decided later on to just shoot the video independently, said that he hopes that the video could prompt people to start using sunscreen.
Watch the video below:
