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Question: What's the difference between SPF and PPD?

Answer:

SPF measures the amount of protection from UVB rays and PPD measures the amount of protection from UVA rays. UVA rays are the ones responsible for aging and UVB rays are the ones responsible for burning. You want to protect yourself from both of these UV rays by using a broad-spectrum, photostable sunscreen.

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need a sunscreen with the highest SPF possible. As you go up in SPF, the higher SPF you go, the less difference it makes. For example, you get a bigger increase in protection moving from SPF 15 to SPF 30 than you would if you moved from SPF 50 to SPF 65.

SPF numbers measure how long a sunscreen will protect you from burning compared to how quickly your skin turns red without sunscreen. For example, if your skin starts burning 30 minutes after being out in the sun with no protection, a sunscreen with SPF 20 would prevent you from burning (30 min x 20) for 600 minutes or 10 hours.

PPD values aren’t measured as precisely as SPF numbers. In fact, there is no standardized system for determining them so there is some ambiguity in their assessment. PPD is also known as PA in some countries with plus signs that signal UVA protection strength. The higher the PPD number or the greater the number of plus signs, the better a sunscreen protects against UVA rays.

For more information about sunscreen, click here. To find out your sunscreen’s PPD, check out this helpful website.

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