Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - The Wellness Industry’s Newest Lie Could Give You Cancer with Dr. Mary Alice Mina

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

In today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, we separate sunscreen fact from fiction and unpack the growing resurgence of tanning culture. Joined by board-certified dermatologist and The Skin Real host Dr. Mary Alice Mina, we explore the truth about sunscreen safety, SPF myths, tanning trends, melanoma risk, and the science of protecting your skin. If you've ever questioned sunscreen, chased a tan, or wondered how to reduce your skin cancer risk, this episode is for you. Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: Are Chemical Sunscreens Actually Safe? Can Food Really Replace Sunscreen? The Dangerous Return of Tanmaxxing Is There Such a Thing as a Safe Tan? Why Gen Z Is Tanning Again Wrinkles vs. Skin Cancer: What Motivates Prevention? The Best Sunscreens & Self-Tanners The ABCDEs of Melanoma How to Spot Skin Cancer Early The Biggest Myths About Sun Protection Check in with today’s amazing guest:  Dr. Mary Alice Mina www.theskinreal.com instagram.com/drminaskin theskinreal.podbean.com tiktok.com/drminaskin facebook.com/drminaskin Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.

A tan is actually changing the DNA in your cells. Like if I told you like, hey, I'm going to have you go do this test and it's going to change the DNA in the nucleus of your cells, you would never do that. But that's essentially what's happening in the sun. Welcome to another episode, A Bite Back with Abby Sharp, where I dismantle Diet culture rules, call it the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience and help you achieve food freedom for good. Today's episode is one that really, really does hit home. Last year, my husband noticed a mole on my back that seemed a little bit off. Within the week, I had it biopsied, and just a few days later, I was given the diagnosis that no young woman wants skin cancer. Despite being only 37 at the time, I'm not just an unlucky anomaly.

Melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young people, and by age 70, about 20% of people will be diagnosed. When missed, it can be devastatingly deadly. But when caught early, as I did, it has a 99% survival rate. Hence the important of today's discussion. Adding to the urgency here, dermatology experts have been sounding the alarm on the return of tanning culture among Gen Z, with trends circulated. on TikTok like checking the UV for tan maxing and using diet in place of SPF. A lot of these trends are grounded in something that we talk about quite frequently here on ByBack, which is the appeal to nature's fallacy, or the idea that anything natural is inherently superior or safer than anything man-made. And considering that the sun is at the center of our natural universe and sun protectants like sunscreen are made in a lab, it makes sense that conversations around sun safety are riddled in this fallacy. Joining me today to dive into the truth about sunscreen safety, SPF diets, skin cancer,

tanning, and more is Dr. Mary Alice Mina, a board certified dermatologist and the host of the top podcast, The Skin Real. Now, before we dive in, if you haven't already, I would love if you would subscribe to Bite Back for more long-form wellness culture debunking. Check out my YouTube channel, Abby's Kitchen for longer-form reactions, and TikTok and Instagram for hot takes and short-form reactions and myth-busting. Subscribing makes a huge difference and really does help me continue to create great content for you. All right, friends, let's dive in. Thank you so much, Dr. Mina. I'm so excited to chat about this, really looking forward to this conversation, both selfishly for myself. But also, I think this is a very important conversation.

You know, sun safety is very important. So especially in an age of misinformation. So thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, understandable. Thank you so much for having me, Abby. Love your podcast. Thank you. Thank you.

I want to kind of jump in talking about sunscreen for a minute because I think that there's, you know, so many influencers right now claiming that, you know, sunscreen is toxic. It's an endocrine disruptor, that it's more dangerous than the sunsendium. itself. And this is not even just like fringe communities anymore. It just feels a bit like the entire kind of quote quote, clean beauty movement has also reinforced a lot of fear around sunscreen, specifically chemical sunscreens. Just to kind of set the record straight out the gate, is it safe to use chemical sunscreen if that is your preference? A hundred percent. I do not want anyone listening to be fearful about using them as they are intended. Now, if you are a

and you are eating copious amounts of them for years, maybe there's a problem, but there have been zero human studies showing problems using these sunscreens when applied topically. We just don't use enough of it. We're not ingesting it. So I don't want anyone to be fearful about using them. Yeah. Okay. I'm so happy that you said that.

Because, I mean, obviously I'm not a dermatologist, but, you know, I've looked into the research. And the way I see it is very, really no different than the food in that, you know, the presence of a chemical. I know chemical sounds always scary for people. Presence of a chemical does not make it toxic. And the dose makes the poison. And like you said, we're not eating it, hopefully, unless you're like a toddler who got his hands on it. But, you know, and there's a lot of innovative mineral sunscreen options now that have, of course, drastically improved from the thick zinc creams and stuff.

But yeah, for some, you know, they're expensive. They can stain clothes and furniture. Harder to apply. Yeah, harder to get off. Harder to get off. I know. And so, you know, the way I see it is kind of like if people are less likely to use or reapply a mineral sunscreen because they don't like the feel or the look or whatever. From my perspective, it seems unquestionably better to use a chemical sunscreen. Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. And the other thing is it's really doing a disservice to people of color. who oftentimes have a much harder time getting a mineral sunscreen to be applied and to look nice on their skin. And we're, you know, I don't want them thinking, I can't wear sunscreen then because I don't want to hurt myself with a chemical sunscreen. So that's why I think this misinformation is so dangerous. And if I wear, I use chemical sunscreens, I have no problem with them. If your personal preference is to use a mineral one, then by all means do it. But it's totally, I think inappropriate to tell people that chemical sunscreens are dangerous, are going to hurt them.

Yeah. Okay. I'm so happy we clear the air on that. Yeah. Now, I want to take it a step further now because, you know, now it's not enough to avoid like a chemical sounding sunscreen. There's this, like, huge trend I'm seeing towards foregoing sunscreen altogether instead just kind of, quote, eating your sun protection through foods rich in antioxidants. And, you know, I'm a dietitian. Obviously, I believe that food is powerful. But that feels like a massive reach. What is your response to that trend? Well, trust your gut, Abby. Yes, it is. And yes, I think food is so important for our health. I don't need to tell you that, right? And what we eat shows up on our skin. So by all means, eat a healthy diet. Eat a lot of antioxidant rich foods, of course, right?

But don't think that by eating that, it's the same thing as applying it topically to your skin. You can't eat enough oranges to get the benefit of a vitamin C serum. Same thing with eating carrots for a retinol. It just doesn't work that way, right? So eat those items because they're good for your body in general, but we need to apply them to our skin for the protection from UV damage or for the antioxidant benefits in our skin directly. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, I talk about these kinds of bits of misinformation that we see online. And often they're kind of, they're based on like a nugget of truth that becomes wildly overstated because of course, like antioxidants, carotenoids help to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation after UV exposure.

But it's not like applying, you know, a thick layer of SPF, you know, if it offers any actual barrier to stop UV from entering the skin, it is basically insignificant. It's really more like, it's really more in helping the cells cope with some of the oxidative stress after the UV penetration. It's, it's almost like if we likened this to the difference between wearing a seatbelt and then taking an Advil after the car crash to help with the pain. Like, you know, hopefully we wear the seat. belt, right? We want to avoid the injury in the first place. So yeah, there's a lot of these wellness culture trends that are obviously a waste of money, but when it's displacing something or

replacing a cancer preventative behavior, that is when we see, you know, actual harm and it's more damaging. Absolutely. And like, you know, like misinformation, unfortunately, spread so much faster than real information, right? Like, it's not sexy to sit here and say, like sun protect and eat a balanced diet, high in fiber and antioxidants, right? It's much sexier to say like, this is going to kill you and buy my supplement that's going to cure all that. Yeah, 100%. We talk a lot about algorithmic escalation and how that works. And it is becoming just harder and harder for folks to understand what's real and what's not. Right. Now, I want to talk about another trend that maybe might even be more dangerous than sunscreen skepticism. And

that is this revived tan maxing trend for seeing. What the hell? I'm a millennial. So like I grew up in the 90s and 2000s and I shudder to remember that it was basically like our after school activity to go to the tanning bed. Put on your like playboy bunny little like sticker. Get your tanning oil. And it was like a flex to see like, oh, this week I'm going up in minutes.

And we didn't know any better. Like we knew teens then didn't know anything about skin care or retinal or eye creams. And what's interesting to me today is that not only do we have loads of public health messaging against tanning and tanning beds, but kids are also deeply engrossed in all that anti-aging beauty messaging from a very young age. So I'm curious, this seems like a bit of a dichotomy. like how do you make sense of the fact that despite all that tanning is kind of reentering the chat for gen z i know it's crazy i remember growing up and uh one of my like the barbie doll you could get for her barby's uh barby's dream house was a tanning bed right and look i've been to tanning beds right a lot of times people are like shocked but yeah i mean i think there's a little bit of like doing something bad right

and like, yeah, I was told I shouldn't do it, so I'm going to do it. I've heard that smoking's kind of making a comeback, right? Because people are like, oh, it's kind of bad, so I want to do it. So I think there's a little bit of that for young people. I know for me there was, you know, I can't say I didn't think it was healthy to tan, but I was like 18, 19, 20. I didn't really care. I thought my skin would look better. So I will say a funny story, though. I was going to tanning beds. And I was in my early 20s and someone, and again, I am really, really pale. Like, I really didn't get that tan. But someone asked me how old I was.

And I told him, I said, oh, I'm like 21 or 22. And they said, oh, I thought you were a lot older. And it's because I was getting little lines around my eyes. And that was a wake up call for me to say, okay, wait a minute. Like maybe this tanning isn't doing me any favors. Because to be told you, look, in your late 20s, when you're in your early 20s, you know, That's a big insult, right? But yeah, it is, it is disheartening to see this because a big portion of of what I do day to day is I remove skin cancer on people. And it may sound like, oh, skin cancer.

There's, you know, there are millions of people getting it. You don't die from it, you know. And that's, you know, while the majority may not, you're still having surgery, you're getting scars. You know, I have one lady who says, like, I'm like a patchwork, you know, doll right now. I'm constantly having to have things cut out from me because if we don't, then they will get bigger and grow. And so I think sometimes we minimize the impact of what skin cancer can do for you. And unfortunately, you may not realize that until you're in your 60s, 70s, 80s, and it's kind of too late to undo that. So it is frustrating to see that. It does make me sad.

I would say if you want to have more of a glow on your skin, use a self-tank. manner, right? Like they make some really nice ones nowadays. But for young people listening, if you truly want gorgeous skin in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, you have got to stop frying your skin. Like that is, that in smoking are probably the two biggest culprits that you actually have control over. You don't have control over your genetics, but you can control that. And it's so damaging to your skin. And unfortunately, you won't notice. it until it's almost like too late. Mm-hmm. Yep. I know. You brought up so many points I want to talk about. I think about this

often. Like how are we back here? When I look back on my ears in the tanny bed, I'm mortified. I really am. And I mentioned this at the top of the show, but, you know, I was recently diagnosed with skin cancer. That's why this is such an important conversation to have. And like you mentioned, like it's being removed and I you know everything's good the borders are gone and and clear and you know but I've got a big scar on my back I have to get checked every three months I'm constantly worried about like well what if the next one's on my face and you know like that's my big fear like what if I have to shave my head because there's one on my head and so these are you know and it's it's interesting so you kind of brought this up a moment ago about you know you're only you know young

people might be more motivated by this idea of like emphasizing like the wrinkles or the premature aging than the risk of skin cancer because skin cancer seems like oh yeah you know get that till you're old I'm I'm not even 40 and you know and I'm I'm very prudent about skin skin safety but I went to the tanning beds when I was a kid and so you know it might be genetically predisposed it might have been the tanning beds it might have been both but whatever it is it's When you're talking to younger audiences about sun safety, do you find that really kind of zoning in on like the wrinkle story is the key to getting the message across as opposed to like, hey, you might die from this one day? Yes, 100%. Right. And they've actually done studies to prove this, that younger people, they're not really worried about skin cancer. That seems so far in the distance, you know, in the future for them that they can't even comprehend that. But if you tell them, you're going to. get wrinkles, you're going to age your skin, then that does make a difference. Like it did for me.

And I'll even tell, I mean, it's kind of crazy how young kids are now thinking about their skin. In my opinion, it's a little too young. But that's how I get my children to wear sunscreen. I'll say, okay, well, you know, you want to have wrinkled skin. Okay, don't wear it. You know, and then they go and they put it on. But yeah, yeah, there have been studies showing that they, and you can actually see those changes. I mean, again, I could see the changes in my skin in my early 20s from tanning. And so that was just from, and again, I wasn't even doing it nearly as much as a lot of people. So it happens faster than you realize.

And prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? I see these people come to my office in their 50s or 60s, and they've never done any sort of aesthetic thing. And they want to improve their appearance or their skin. And we, you know, we really have to like kind of do sometimes do some pretty heavy duty things versus if you had just been taking care of your body and your skin along the way. It's much simpler. Yes. I do think that this trend towards tan maxing again is in part, at least related to the kind of Y2K ultra-thin body, you know, super skinny trend that we're seeing.

Yeah. as, you know, women have historically use a dark tan to make them look thinner. And so, you know, these trends historically went hand in hand. They did in my teen years, the ultra thin aesthetic and the ultra tanned body. And these things do have a tendency to come full circles. So I think that's that that is part of it. And at least, you know, for me, you had mentioned like when you were a teen or in your 20s, you maybe understood that tanning wasn't great for you.

But when I was a teenager, there seemed to be this longstanding belief that getting a base tan, quote, trains your skin against burning. And that is then seen as kind of a healthier, protective thing to do because we know that burns are bad. And there's evidence to suggest that even a single blistering burn or five normal burns can, you know, double your risk of skin cancer. So is there actually such thing as a, quote, safe tan or a quote, healthy tan? Yeah, actually, I mean, I can kind of see the logic people are trying to go with, but no. Really, a tan period is a sign of your body reacting to UV damage and radiation. And what happens is the melanin, the pigment in your skin kind of makes a little umbrella around the nucleus of the cell to protect it because UV damage is actually changing the DNA in your cells. Like, you would, if I told you like, hey, I'm going to have you. go do this test and it's going to change the DNA in your the nucleus of your cells, you would never do that. But that's essentially what's happening in the sun. So a tan is your body trying to protect itself. So that in and of itself is a sign of damage of too much UV radiation. And so exposure.

So having that base tan, you know, it's really going to give you a nominal amount of sun protection. so people with darker skin, even the darkest skin you can imagine, the SPF is still way under 15. It might be SPF like 14 to 7. You know, it's not high. It's not high enough. And so that's, it's just not going to be safe. So there's no such thing as a safe tan unless it's self-tanner. Okay.

That is really helpful. I'm glad we cleared that up. And you just kind of threw out some estuarial. SPF numbers. And I think there's a lot of, I guess, confusion, what SPF even means. Can you kind of walk us through? Like, obviously, we want to protect ourselves from skin cancer. I want to protect myself against aging prematurely and wrinkles and things like that. If we're trying to, you know, keep our skin in the best shape it can be, both aesthetically and from a health perspective, what are our best practices in terms of like what strength of SPF do we need?

How often do we need to reapply? Winter versus summer. Like, are there differences in terms of what we should be aiming for? Give us all the tips. I need a play by play. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So really, sunscreen every day. Like, put it by your toothbrush.

I don't think, you know, I live in Atlanta. It does tend to be sunny here. It may factor in. If you live in Alaska and it's truly dark, you know, okay, like maybe a little bit. But, you know, say you live in a place where, you know, most of the time during the day, it's light and then at night it's dark. But I wear sunscreen every day because I, even though I go into an office, I still have about a 15 to 30 minute commute. Their sun coming through the car window.

I'm actually sitting next to my window here getting, I can sort of feel the afternoon sun coming in. And those UV rays, the UVA rays actually do come through the window. So even if you're like, hey, I'm in an office. I'm not outside. I get it. But I would, I see. still recommend sunscreen over the parts of your skin that are exposed. And SPF 30 or higher is ideal. SPF really only looks at UVB protection. So it doesn't really cover the UVA. So you also want to look for a sunscreen that says broad spectrum where it covers A and B. And, you know, most of the sunscreens you'll find at the drugstore like Nutrugina, Avino, La Roche-Pose, like those, those cover both in general. But if you're picking up,

some sort of very niche sunscreen, you may just want to make sure it covers both. SPF 30 or higher, you know, going to 100, the amount of extra protection is not a huge amount. But that being said, we never apply it as thickly as we should. So your 30 is probably a little bit less. Your 50 might be more like a 30. So, you know, if I had two choices and I liked the 100 and I liked the 30 just as much, I'd probably go with the 100. But you should put it, you know, the way I do it is, I put it on every morning, any skin that is exposed. So typically I'm wearing like long sleeves.

And so I'll put it on my face and my neck. But if you're wearing t-shirts, probably include your upper chest, include your forearms, include your legs. And there's no magic sunscreen that everyone should use. You have to like how it feels on your skin. And that may change between hot or summer months and maybe dry or winter months. you may play around with switching that up a little bit. I have to admit, I don't love putting stuff on my skin. So I'm a big proponent of also just protecting. Like, again, I wear like gloves in my car.

I have noticed that like I've done a really good job taking care of the skin on my face and neck, but my hands were showing more sun damage. And I felt like they were aging me more than here. So I actually did buy some gloves and I drive with them. And, you know, I just leave them in the car. I keep a hat in my car because who knows, maybe I'm going to go for a walk or maybe I'm going to go to the playground or whatever it's going to be. So I always had that in my car. And then I also have just like a little shrug that I can throw over my shoulders.

Again, if I'm wearing, you know, it's hot. I'm wearing a tank top and I'm going to be outdoors. To me personally, rather than lathering up more sunscreen, I'd rather just throw that little shrug on. It's really lightweight and breathable. So there are other things you can do to sun protect other than just sunscreen. But certainly if I'm at the beach, I am religiously reapplying after I'm swimming or sweating or every two hours. Two hours. Okay. Are there areas of the body that maybe we are missing that you see a lot of, you know, cancerous moles pop out because perhaps we're just forgetting to apply SPF there. We're just unable to. Like,

like anything that we should be maybe thinking more about that we maybe haven't before? Sure. So for men commonly, I call it jokingly, this one of my patients called it this and I'm taking it. The solar patch in the back of the head. You may not realize, maybe you have some hair there, but it's thinning. And actually women too. As we get older, our hair starts to thin. So what I find is that frequently people's scalps are getting more sun than they realize. And when a one, Laman gets a, or when anyone gets a spot on the scalp, if you have hair, it's a lot of times we only notice it when it's a little more progressed. You know, if you had a concerning spot on the tip of your nose or your eyelid, you're going to notice that pretty quickly. But if it's like buried back here in your scalp, you may not notice it for a year, two years, etc. So it can

allow them to get bigger. I know I had some pretty bad sunbirds from, I think we're watching like the Blue Angels in elementary school and my part. And so I have to be honest, I'm not putting sunscreen on my hair. So again, wearing a hat, I prefer a hat to a visor because a visor will cover your face, but you're not getting that sun protection back here. So if you are someone who always wears your hair and, you know, the same part, maybe wear sunscreen on it, but ideally also just put a hat on. So those are common areas. Ears are common areas for guys. eyes. We can get them around the eyes. And so sunglasses can be helpful. Melanoma is most common on the back for men and on the legs for women. So I think a lot of times, and I have to admit, I'm not as

good with my lower body as I am with my face. But again, don't forget your lower legs or your legs if you're wearing shorts and things like that. They can get sunburn. I think most people, right, you go to the beach, you put sunscreen all over, but you kind of forget the tops of your feet and those can get burned too. Oh, I've had a bad burn on the feet and it is so painful because then you have to put shoes on and no shoe is going to be comfortable when you've got like a really bad burn on your feet. So that's a really great reminder. Yeah, mine is like right at my back and it happens to be at the spot where I can't really reach it with this hand and I can't really reach it with this hand. And my dermatologist was like, yeah, that makes sense. Because

You can't reach it either way to get a good amount of sunscreen there. Nor could I see it. So yeah, so that's all really good reminders. Now, you mentioned earlier that, of course, the safest alternative is a, you know, is a great self-tanner. And there's so many fake tanners out there. There have been for many years and they just keep evolving. And I've tried so many of them, you know, and I all make me, I've got very sensitive reactive skin. I find that they make me break out or I caught you get a little bumps, especially on my chest.

Do you have any favorites that are like foolproof but look natural and also good for sensitive or reactive skin? Gosh. So I'm definitely not an expert. I kind of base it off my patients might say, oh, like, don't worry, Doc. This is a, this is a, this is a tanner. You know, they tell me. So one, I and I don't use it. I really just put it on my legs, I have to say, because I actually don't really mind my, my rest of my body. guess looking a little bit lighter, but I do feel like my legs look better when they're not translucent. So I have been using, let's see, right now I've been using, I think it's called Tan Lux, L-U-X-E, and it's like droppers. And so don't do what I did. Like, I do recommend wearing gloves because I did not sufficiently wash my hands afterwards, and I did have some stains. But you put a couple drops in your palm, and then you mix it with whatever moisturizer you like. and I will just apply that on my legs.

And I think you could also apply it really nicely on your arms, your chest, your face. And again, you're mixing it with your own moisturizer. So that might be something to try. Use a moisturizer that you know doesn't break you out, doesn't irritate your skin, and maybe give that a try. I know other popular brands are like Juergens makes one. And I think the ones where you build up gradually always give better results. So you can kind of stop when you like the look and you feel like it looks good. But, you know, I think if you only have to do it once the wrong way to know, like your hands, your elbows, your knees, the bottoms of your feet, those areas are going to pick up on that product more.

And so that they can stain. And so I try to put moisturizer on those first so that they don't get that streaky or get. or get sort of that extra pigment in them. Yeah. Okay. That's very, very helpful. I'm going to look that up right away.

And for anyone who is, I know you've got a podcast, can you kind of let us know what you've got going on and if anyone wants to kind of find you where they can find you? Yeah, absolutely. So I started a podcast, gosh, probably about four years ago called the Skin Real. And nowadays I have to spell that for people,

R-E-A-L, like real. like real information, but I just felt like there weren't enough dermatologists out there giving, especially like long form content. You know, there are a lot on like social media and quick 60 second bites. But for someone who actually wants to really delve into like what's really happening in pari menopause or what's going on, you know, with whatever, eczema, skin cancer, things like that. So it's on YouTube and all the places you can listen to podcast. and yeah, check that out if you want to, you know, because I know it's at least here in the U.S.

It's hard to see a dermatologist and really have lengthy discussions. So hopefully this is a free resource for people who actually want to move beyond the hype and the noise and actually really know what they need to do to take care of their skin. Oh, I'm so happy. I love when other health care professionals have amazing resources like this. So thank you so much for joining us. absolutely I'll be leaving links in the show notes to where folks can find you. So thank you again. Amazing. Thanks so much, Abby. You know, I really truly thought that over the past 20 years of public health campaigns around skin cancer and sun safety, that tanning culture had really gone the way of cigarette smoking.

We all accepted that it was undeniably bad for us and we all kind of collectively agree that it was cringe. But watching it come back in. vogue, knowing I'll now spend the rest of my life biopsying dozens more freckles and moles, not knowing when I'll get another devastating call. I feel uniquely compelled to get loud about these risks. Because we can no longer claim ignorance. Like we have the data now that any sun exposure, whether outdoors or in a tanning bed, increases the risk of cancer. And one of the biggest questions that I got after sharing my diagnosis was how did you know to get it checked? And the truth is, I've had my moles map since I was 20 because I'm just kind of a molly, freckley gal. But I regularly look out for the ABCDs of melanoma every single time I'm in the shower. And starting today,

I really want you to do the same. So here are the flags you want to look out for. A is for symmetry. So any kind of mole where one side doesn't match the other in shape, color, or thickness, that is worth paying attention to. B is for border. So looking out for edges that are irregular, ragged, blurred, or uneven. Then C is for color. So keeping tabs on moles that contain multiple shades of brown, black, red, white, blue, or uneven pigmentation.

D is for diameter, with anything larger than about 6 millimeters being an immediate red flag, But knowing not to rule out smaller moles that also meet other criteria. My melanoma was actually smaller than 6mm because it was caught very early on. And then finally, E is for evolving, which is arguably one of the most important ones. So any mold that's changing in size, shape, color, elevation, or starts itching, bleeding, crusting, or behaving differently than before should absolutely be assessed. But I really hope this conversation has inspired you to rethink your suncare regimen, question the clean beauty or anti-sun protection community, and spend some time getting comfy looking closely at your skin. If one person listening today ends up catching a melanoma before it has had the chance to spread, that is a ripple effect worth having.

So wear your sunscreen, wear the hat, check your skin. and if something doesn't look or feel right, do not wait, please go get it checked. And thank you again to Dr. Mary Alasminah for the rich conversation. If you enjoy this episode, I would love if you would leave me a five-star review and a comment. Please share a bite back with friends and subscribe to the podcast. But signing off with Science and Sass, I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.