Product Review: My Skin Track UV

You’ve heard me harp about it before…you’ve read my blogs…you buy my suncare products…but, yup, here we go again…we have to talk sun exposure. This time in the form of a new product called “My Skin Track UV”, a collaboration between Apple and La Roche-Posay, a large skincare manufacturer. Being a self-professed nerd, I knew I had to go out and get one of these asap and put it to use. But alas, my purchase must have been the bell-weather marker for terrible weather in San Francisco, because it proceeded to rain for 30 straight days as soon as I digitally checked out of the Apple store. The good news is that I have had a long time to work with the product, and I am well versed in it’s pros and cons. 


First a little background: The product is a tiny wearable tracker that has the power to track environmental stressors that affect the health of your skin — including UV rays, pollution, humidity, and pollen levels — and send all the information to an app on your phone. Retailing for $60, Allure gave it a glowing review. I tend to take “editorials” somewhat as “advertorials” when it’s a company that advertises a lot in the magazine itself. But nevertheless, it was worth checking out!


How It Works 

You tell the app your skin tone, and it calculates a “max-sunstock” score, which is the recommended maximum daily allowance of UV based on your skin tone and the day’s UV index where you are. The wearer scans the doo-dad each AM and tells it via the app where it will be worn (you can select neck, shoe, sleeve, hat etc). Then throughout the day, or at the end of the day, the wearer rescans the tracker, and is shown where she is relative to her “max-sunstock”. You can see below that some days, I was well below the worry level. But the day I drove home from Tahoe (was outside for about 20 mins), my max-sunstock was having a heart-attack at 429%. Get out of the sun girl (even though you are in the car)!


The app will also tell you the weather, the pollen count etc. It measures pollution level and tells you to wash your face each day. And of course, it tells you to purchase La Roche-Posay products every chance it gets. Shocker.


So in sum…the pros:

  • educates the wearer regarding UVA and UVB rays (for example, many of my clients don’t think they are exposed to the sun’s rays inside a car, or in the dead of winter – see Tahoe story above)
  • makes you pay attention to your exposure and reminds you to apply sunscreen and re-apply
  • could be used by teens or young adults who are outside a lot and don’t believe that they are in danger. Third party validation that sun exposure is a real thing. Put succinctly “Ninety-nine percent of my patients with skin cancer have had too much UV exposure,” says Ellen Marmur, a board-certified dermatologist and founder of Marmur Medical in New York City. “Like other silent killers — high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high glucose — people tend to be in denial about their risks of high UV exposure. UV rays are damaging during every season.”


Cons:

  • pricey 
  • small…I was worried I was going to lose it constantly
  • not particularly attractive on most outfits
  • annoying with alerts related to buying products - I paid the $60, I don’t need to be constantly told “pollution levels are high today…make sure you wash your face twice…with…”
  • terrible name IMHO…doesn’t roll off the tongue, now does it? 


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