This Slide Sprays Kids With Sunscreen
Any parent who has tried to apply — and reapply — sunscreen on a wiggling child knows how challenging this can be, on top of the nightmare of missing a spot and discovering an angry red sunburn. So the ad agency FCB Cape Town, in partnership with Nivea, came up with a creative solution to help out parents: rigging a slide that sprays SPF 50 on you as you go through it.
The blow-up SunSlide was built with hundreds of spray-jet portals and filled with about 13 gallons of Nivea SPF 50+ waterproof sunscreen to make sure the kids were thoroughly coated after sliding.
The kids were given goggles to protect their eyes as they were misted with sunscreen, providing full coverage while having a blast. The SunSlide was launched in Cape Town, South Africa — the country with the second highest incidence of skin cancer in the world, according to South Africa’s Skin Cancer Foundation — and managed to coat more than 100 kids per hour.
“The goal of the SunSlide was to teach children about being safe in the sun and about the importance of getting the SPF on, but in a fun way,” a spokesperson tells Yahoo Beauty. “South Africans have one of the highest rates of melanoma skin cancer in the world, so it was important for Nivea and FCB Cape Town to protect the children from the harmful effects of the sun. The SunSlide also made it easier for parents, who do not have to waste time at the beach slathering sunscreen on their kids.”
Although you can’t beat the convenience (or fun) of a slide that sprays sunscreen, there’s some question as to how safe spray sunscreen actually is. The Food and Drug Administration has been looking into the safety of spray sunscreens since 2011 and cites two major concerns. One is if the spray application provides enough coverage to protect the skin, which doesn’t seem to be an issue with the SunSlide. The other concern is potential toxicity: The FDA is looking into whether unintentionally breathing in sunscreens in an aerosol form could be toxic. Because of that possibility, in 2014, Consumer Reports erred on the side of caution, recommending that spray sunscreens not be used on children. Even though it may be hard to pass up that handy spray sunscreen, your best bet is the more time-consuming but probably safer version: lotion, with an SPF 30 or higher, that you can slather on your skin.
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