SPF is now a very commonly used abbreviation for sun protection factor and when buying a sunscreen or a sunblock one can note on the packaging it says SPF 15, or SPF 10, but what exactly does sun protection factor mean? It simply means for how much time the product will give protection for before one gets sun burnt. Researchers do most of their tests in laboratory to determine the SPF of a product. A person is made to stand outside in the sun and a test sample is applied on the skin and the time is noted for the unprotected area to start showing the effects of sunburn and how long does it take for the skin portion that has been covered with the test product take for the effect to wear out and the skin to start turning red. This determines the SPF factor of the product. If a product is rated at SPF 10 and it takes a person's skin 10 minutes before he or she start to get sun burnt it means the SPF will give a protection of 100 minutes. SPF is a measure of sunlight and the common belief is that a normal fair skinned human being takes 20 minutes of direct sun exposure before getting sun burnt. The SPF rating ranges from 2 to 60 and it helps to know how much protection does a product offer. A way of measuring is that fair skinned people should use a SPF of 15 which will give them protection for approximately an hour. For medium colored people SPF 8 would give the same protection time and similarly for dark skinned people the required SPF for an hour would be 4.

SPF clothing is designed to offer maximum protection from sun exposure md forte SPF is designed to offer a broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays. SPF 1000 is said to be one of the biggest nightmares and the less said about it the better. The SPF chart is available on a number of internet sites and are helpful as they provide guidance according to one's skin type. So for anyone going out in the sun and knowing their skin type checking the SPF required can be helpful by checking a SPF chart.

The amount of SPF protection that are offered by clothing has also been determined and a hat has an SPF of 3 to 6, nylon stocking SPF 2. to check up on SPF clothing and what are the best clothing that give maximum protection one would be surprised to know that lightly woven fabrics offer the minimum protection, a white tee-shirt offers only SPF 7 and a full sleeved dark denim shirt has an SPF of 1,700. These figures may throw off some people who believe that light colored loosely woven clothes offer the maximum sun protection. Also what the cloth is made of matters unbleached cotton has a special pigment that absorbs UV. Shiny clothes reflect the sun's rays. If one wants to get maximum UV protection from the clothing that they are going to wear then they should consider getting clothes that have been chemically treated to offer maximum protection. Clothes that are labeled as UPF 15 to 50+ can be considered to be sun safe. But even the way in which the clothes are worn can cause them to loose there protection factor. SPF 50 clothing and SPF protective golf shirts for golfing are now quite readily available. Another way of protecting from sun burns is using Sun Guard which when added to a detergent it increases the UV protection of the clothing.

There are entire lines of cosmetics for SPF protection and makeup, powder foundation, SPF labeled is easy to come by and tinted moisturizer with SPF and paraben free moisturizer with SPF are all on offer for people who want to get maximum sun protection.