Lily inspired: Wear Sunscreen

No actually, avoid the sun like a vampire if you can. 

When i was in my teens and early adulthood i loved the sun. Hours and hours i'll spend sun bathing, no SPF. In fact I used sun tan lotion not sunscreen. I got a lot of compliments on my tan, i meekly boast that i don't get sun burns and i tend to tan evenly.

Mid-twenties came. Uhm, the skin starts to sallow and yellow due to late nights (work, parties, surfing the net etc). I realize i needed more and more make up to make myself look better. And because i was tanned and always a different shade, my powder was never the right shade. And powder on dark skin looks gray. I started investing in skincare. No more supermarket products, give me the caviar, gold flakes, highly scientific pitera mambo jumbo. 

And then late twenties. On my wedding day the make-up-artiste told me that the best way to keep our skin looking fresh is to go a shade lighter. You'll look younger, make up will look better, wrinkles will look less obvious. The chinese has a saying, a shade of white covers three shades of ugly "一白遮三丑". Wish I knew that earlier! Think Scarlet Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett!


Then... the big 30 came. I had your brother, then i had you. Freckles started to appear. These dust-sized flecks may look adorable sprinkled on the cheeks of a teenager, but when they become snowflakes on an old lady no amount of concealer can cover it.

If you have my genes then "lucky you". But if you have your dad's genes and you go sun tanning, chances are you'll turn red like a lobster, peel like a shrimp and then become pale again. And btw, your dad has freckles too so you can't escape these brown little flakes. 

So my dear daughter no matter how tempted you are to flaunt your figure at the beach (then again if you have my genes there goes the flaunting), at the very least wear sunscreen.