Why a publication should describe its own boundary
Most publications describe what they cover. Fewer describe where they stop, and in a subject that borders on health that omission is the more consequential one.
A reader arriving here with a question about a label is in the right place. A reader arriving with a question about their skin is not, and the site should say so clearly rather than letting them find something adjacent and treat it as an answer.
This article sets out the boundary, what sits on each side of it, and what we do when a subject reaches the line.
What is inside
Questions about what a word or a number on a sun protection product is permitted to mean. What the protection factor measures and what it does not. What the circled mark records. Which claims are permitted, which carry conditions and which should not be made. Which instrument or code governs a phrase. What evidence a claim requires and who holds it. How a label is structured and in what order it can be read. How the same product is classified in other jurisdictions.
All of that is documentary. It rests on published instruments, published codes, published guidance and published standards, and anybody can check it against the sources we cite.
What is outside
Anything about a person rather than about a label.
Skin cancer, in any respect: risk, detection, appearance, diagnosis, treatment or prognosis. Moles, changes in moles and anything about a mark on skin. Sunburn, its management and when it needs attention. Reactions to a product, whether irritation, an allergic response or a photosensitivity reaction. Medication that affects sensitivity to light. Skin conditions of any kind. Vitamin D status. Anybody's individual level of risk, and what any individual should do about the sun.
None of those is a hard subject for us to write about because the sources are difficult. They are outside because we have no standing to write about them, and because a publication that is careful about instruments and careless about clinical boundaries would be worse than useless.
| A question about | Inside | Where it goes if outside |
|---|---|---|
| What SPF measures | Yes | |
| Whether a claim is permitted | Yes | |
| What a symbol records | Yes | |
| Which instrument governs a phrase | Yes | |
| A mole or a change on skin | No | A GP |
| A reaction to a product | No | A pharmacist or a GP |
| Sunburn and what to do about it | No | NHS guidance, or a pharmacist |
| Your own level of risk | No | A GP, and NHS or Cancer Research UK information |
| What product to buy | No | Nobody here, ever |
Framework of this publication. It describes how published rules and guidance fit together and is not a measurement, a survey or a study.
Where those questions go
A GP, for anything about a change on your skin, a mole, a persistent mark, a reaction, or your own risk.
A pharmacist, for questions about a product reaction, about a medication that may affect sensitivity to light, and for advice on what to do about mild sunburn, which pharmacists are well placed to help with.
The NHS, whose public guidance covers sunscreen and sun safety, sunburn and vitamin D, and which is the first place to go for anything general.
Cancer Research UK and the British Association of Dermatologists, both of which publish accessible public information on sun protection and on skin.
NICE, for the guideline on sunlight exposure, which addresses risks and benefits together.
All of those are linked in the sources below and throughout the site.
What we do when an article reaches the line
Every article on this site carries a standing block, in a distinct colour, stating that the publication is a labelling one and directing clinical questions elsewhere. It is not a disclaimer added to protect us. It is placed where the subject reaches the boundary, because that is where a reader is most likely to keep reading and treat what follows as an answer.
Where a subject cannot be written about without crossing the line, we change the piece. That has happened repeatedly in building this publication. An article on what sensitive is permitted to mean stops at the evidence a manufacturer must hold and does not address what anybody with sensitive skin should do. An article on heat and storage describes the mechanism of degradation and does not tell anybody whether a particular product is still safe to use.
The alternative, writing the more useful version and adding a warning, is the pattern that makes health adjacent publishing untrustworthy. A warning does not make a clinical statement acceptable from a source with no clinical standing.
The related discipline: no alarm
A boundary about clinical advice sits next to a discipline about tone.
Sun protection writing has an obvious route to attention, which is to make the reader frightened. It is available, it works and it is a form of the same error: a publication with no accountability for health outcomes generating a health response.
The bodies that are accountable write calmly. They describe risks in proportion, address benefits alongside them, and avoid absolutes. That is the register we work in, and the reasoning is set out in the vocabulary of UK sun safety guidance.
The boundary has a commercial counterpart
The clinical boundary is one of two lines this publication draws around itself. The other is commercial, and the reasoning is parallel.
We do not name products, rank them or recommend them, and no sunscreen brand can buy anything here at any price. A publication ruling on whether a claim is permitted cannot take money from the parties making claims, in the same way that a publication explaining a label cannot issue clinical advice. Both are limits on usefulness accepted in exchange for being trustworthy on the narrow thing we do cover. The commercial side is set out in full at what we refuse to sell.
The tests we apply before publishing
The boundary is easier to hold when it is expressed as questions rather than as a principle, and four are applied to every article here.
Could a reader act on this as health advice? If a sentence could reasonably be read as telling somebody what to do about their skin, their risk or a symptom, it does not go in, whatever it is surrounded by.
Can every figure be attributed? If a percentage, a threshold or a statistic cannot be traced to a source we are prepared to cite, the mechanism is described and the figure is not printed. This has removed more content than any other rule.
Does this name a product? If an example requires a brand, a product or a pack to make sense, the example is replaced with a phrase examined on its own terms.
Would a reasonable reader think money influenced this? If the answer to that is anything other than a flat no, the arrangement producing the doubt does not happen.
Those four questions are why the site looks the way it does: narrow, documentary, unillustrated by products, and free of the tidy figures that make this subject readable elsewhere.
What is left, and why it is enough
What remains after both boundaries is a publication about the language of a label. It cannot tell you what to buy, what to do or what a mark on your skin is.
It can tell you what a number means, what a word is permitted to promise, what a symbol records, which claims are ruled out and who decides. That is a narrow subject and it is one that almost nobody covers, because it sells nothing and reassures nobody.
What to take from this
Labels are inside, people are outside. Clinical questions go to a GP, a pharmacist or the NHS. Where a subject cannot be written about without crossing that line, we change the article rather than adding a warning to it.