Does sunscreen completely stop you from getting a tan?

I have seen a lot of posts from various places before and afters starting to use sunscreens. They are usually significantly lighter than the before photos. This made me wonder, if you are using sunscreen correcting and reapplying at all the appropriate times, will you not tan at all? Even if you are out in the sun all day?

No sunscreen can completely prevent a tan because no sunscreen blocks 100% of UV rays. The highest protection is 98% and for some people, that small amount of rays that come through is enough to trigger melanin production in the skin.

No, not completely. Those people generally stay out of the sun as much as possible as well: including seeking out shade, wearing hats, covering up, avoiding the sub in general, etc.

That would make sense as to why I would still tan then. I reapply as the packaging days to but still tan but I don’t actively try to stay out of it. I love the sun too much haha.

I get very tan with sunscreen on. No matter how high the SPF or how often I apply it, I go from being very fair in the winter to deep brown in the summer. Multi-racial melanin is weird.

It depends on the sunscreen. SPF only denotes the blockage of UVB, wherein it’s normally UVA that causes tanning. Many American sunscreens do offer “broadspectrum protection” against UVA, but the amount of protection often isn’t very high, so it’s possible that re-applying these sunscreens wouldn’t help at all with tanning.

I’m the same way, but with all the other posts I had seen I thought maybe I was doing it wrong haha