Summer weather, gardening, and outdoor yard activities lure you to the fresh air and sunshine, but it is important to keep your skin and health safe from any threats in your backyard. Here are some tips to help you protect your skin from the sun and other irritants when you work outside in your garden and backyard.
Wear a Long Sleeve T-Shirt
During gardening and other backyard work, you can receive a great deal of exposure to the sun and its harmful rays. Although a limited amount of sun exposure has its health benefits to boost your body's required needs of vitamin D, too much sun exposure has been linked to skin cancer. And on the hottest days, exposure to the sun's rays can increase your body's temperatures and put you at risk of heat stroke and other heat-related illness.
As you prepare to work outside in your yard, be sure to put on southern long sleeve t shirts to help protect your skin from the sun. A t-shirt that is of a light-colored material can protect your skin and keep your body cooler. And on the hottest days, you can boost your body's cooling ability by wetting your long sleeved t-shirt in warm water before you put it on. When you do this any breeze that blows through the wet t-shirt will immediately cool your body while it is protected from the sun. When your t-shirt dries out, wet it again so you can continue working in the sun without breaking a sweat.
Choose Appropriate Gardening Gloves
When you are working outside in the sunshine, soil, and vegetation, there are many surfaces and substances that may irritate your skin. Many types of garden plants and vegetables that have tiny sharp barbs to naturally help protect them against insects and other predators. Zucchini, summer squash, and green bean plants all contain tiny sharp points along their fruit, leaves, and stems, that can cause your skin to itch and present a rash.
Unfortunately these sharp points can scratch and irritate your skin when you are working around them, often for several hours or days after being in contact with the plant. Purchase a pair of long gardening gloves you can wear while you are outside weeding around, harvesting, and working with these plants. Then, you can spend the time you need and want to in your garden with your plants without suffering from an uncomfortable rash afterwards.
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