“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’99 … wear sunscreen. If I could offer you one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.”

It’s not April 1st. Just checking.

The Daily Mail reported on something that sounds like, if not utter bull crap, certainly a really bad idea. It’s called “drinkable sunscreen”, which is at the very least a terrible name for a product. But in this day of keyword loading and the prevalence of shock and curiosity approaches to marketing, there you have it.

First of all, it is not actually a sunscreen that you drink. It is touted as a product with “frequencies … imprinted on water” that somehow offers protection from UV rays, similar to the benefit of topical sunscreens.

According to company claims, you drink just a couple of milliliters of this stuff, and you are protected for four hours at about an SPF 30 level. They say the stuff “will vibrate on your skin in such a way as to cancel approximately 97% of the UVA and UVB rays before they even hit your skin.”

If all this sounds like a lot of hocus-pocus to you, you are not alone.

Drinkable sunscreen for those of us who care about the sun! what is this stuff? Can you OD on this trash? seriously…

— melanie (@melanie50789286) May 21, 2014

Did i just hear theres drinkable sunscreen on the news?…i just cant

— Ashley Powell (@aoush) May 21, 2014

While one writer slammed the notion that one can drink something and it end up on one’s skin…

“Say what? You ingest it, and it ends up “on” the skin? How exactly? I’ve studied human anatomy, I’ve never noticed any direct connection between oesophagus and epidermis.”

… that part does seem plausible to me. You sweat it out. Of course, that opens up a whole new can of worms in terms of the process, so let’s keep this simple.

The first question may seem to be, “Does it work?” And manufacturers have a pile of testimonials claiming the stuff works for most people.

That’s not the most important question. The most important question is, “What else does it do?”

Are there side effects? And not just immediate ones, what about cumulative buildup in liver or kidneys? You know, the stuff the FDA ignores until people start dropping dead and their families start filing lawsuits. Anyone remember Fen-Phen?

Maybe this is all too alarmist, but nothing this product does has been evaluated by the FDA or any other body.

So I guess it all comes down to that great American mechanism that ensures our safety, health and well-being: Caveat Emptor … Let the Buyer Beware.

Image via YouTube