Fears people are only covering their faces as sun messaging moves to anti-wrinkles

Messages that sunscreen is for preventing wrinkles and social influencers spruiking tanning could be eroding decades of warning about melanoma risk to a generation too young to remember slip, slop, slap and the solarium debate, sun safety experts have warned.

More expensive facial sunscreens from cosmetics companies are rising in popularity, with sun protection marketed as “anti-ageing” rather than to prevent a burn.

Facial sunscreen sales over the past three months were up 59.5 per cent on the same period last year at Priceline pharmacies, a spokesperson said. Sales of everyday sunscreens increased 16 per cent during that time.

“We obviously realise that anti-ageing is a key motivator [for sunscreen use],” said Liz King, manager of skin cancer prevention at Cancer Council NSW.

“Sunscreen is sunscreen, but having the motivation of anti-ageing may mean that people just put sunscreen on their face, they don’t put it on their body, and that is the key drawback.”

This summer, several Australian influencers have come under fire for promoting unsafe tanning practices to their largely Generation Z audiences.

Sydney model Sophia Begg, who has 1.2 million followers on TikTok, has since deleted a post in which she said she lays in the sun for two to three hours a day with tanning oil. Former Love Island contestant Tayla Damir copped similar criticism for describing a beach as “nice to tan at” in an Instagram story.

“10/10 would not swim in the sewage bay they call a beach in Melb but nice to tan at,” she wrote.

Melbourne lifestyle blogger Rozalia Russian also posted a photo of her visibly burnt skin while reading in the sun.

Last month, TikTok promised to ban videos encouraging tanning, after Melanoma Institute Australia raised concern about the “sunburnt tanlines” hashtag on the platform having more than 200 million views.

The Shader is a sun shade designed only for the face.

But while the social media platform said users who search for “sunburn”, “summer sun” and similar hashtags would see a pop-up banner for an anti-tanning campaign, the feature does not appear to have gone live.

Also appearing on social media feeds over the summer (after it was sent to a number of local lifestyle influencers) was the Shader, an Australian-designed beach tent only for the face. “Enjoy the sun’s warmth without exposing your face to harmful UV rays,” its website boasts.

Asked if this advertising promoted tanning, Shader’s CEO Mark Seller said it was “not telling people to not use sunscreen or a shirt or practice sun safety” but would ask his social media team to increase their sun safety messaging when promoting the product.

It is 41 years since the “slip, slop, slap” sun safety advertising campaign encouraged Australians to wear protective clothing, sunscreen and a hat.

The Cancer Council Australia’s National Sun Protection Survey showed the proportion of adolescents who “liked” a tan between 2003-4 and 2016-17 halved to 30 per cent. The most recent version of this survey, which King said should not be directly compared as it was conducted online, found the proportion of adults aged 18 to 24 who liked a tan in 2019 was around 41 per cent.

“Our population data isn’t showing that this is becoming a national issue. That doesn’t take away from the importance of it, though, and we need to monitor if there might be changes,” King said.

“Anecdotally, we get the sense that people may think the job is done. But we live in Australia and we do have really high UV, so we need to have that prevention message.”

Late last year the federal government announced a $10 million national campaign updating the message to “slip, slop, slap, seek [shade] and slide [on sunglasses]” when in the sun.

“What replaced solariums was fake tan, and with that we kept the desirability to be tanned.”

Liz King from Cancer Council NSW, on how changes to solariums made no real difference to dangerous tanning

Before the summer of 2021-22, the last federal government spending on a sun safety health campaign was in 2005-06.

“There’s always a deterioration in the sun safety message,” said Rodney Sinclair, a professor of dermatology at the University of Melbourne and skin cancer specialist, noting it was now a decade since the incidence of skin cancer was declared to have peaked in Australia, and Generation Z were too young to remember the solarium debate a decade ago that resulted in bans across the country.

“You don’t have that memory any more, you don’t have that fear of the sun,” he said.

“But then what replaced solariums was fake tan, and with that we kept the desirability to be tanned.”

With melanoma most commonly appearing on the legs of women and the backs of men – unlike the second-most common skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, which is usually on the face and neck – Sinclair said it was important for people to cover themselves up in the sun, as well as wear sunscreen on their whole body.

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