My Sicilian Family Never Feared the Sun. Here's What Their Skin at 90 Taught Me

We had a brief heatwave in the UK last week, under the sun everything is just better; mindset, digestion, life satisfaction. When you are starved of sunshine like we are in the UK the difference at its arrival is undeniable.

I was out enjoying it at every opportunity, not something to take for granted when at age 18 I was diagnosed with being ‘allergic to the sun’.

It was my happy place even back then- under the sun. My half Sicilian blood craves the heat.

So when I was told I was allergic to the sun, I asked for a second opinion. That came back with the same conclusion. Two doctors I refused to believe at the skin hospital telling me the unbearable urticaria I was suffering with at the time (painful, itchy, red blisters all over my hands, feet and arms) would be with me for life due to my sun allergy and proceeded to prescribe me factor 60 sunscreen which I was to wear even when inside a car.

Apparently you can just become ‘allergic’ one day. When I was told this my first thought was OK, so how do I become un-allergic? There was no answer given.

Thank goodness my mother brought me up to question everything. She had often talked of ‘the power of the white coat’ so I knew how important it was to think for myself, especially if something wasn’t resonating.

I’m half Sicilian, I had been visiting Sicily in summer most years, in 40 degree heat for up to a month and never experienced anything like this before.

But more than that my instinct disagreed, sun is life giving, without the sun I would be dead. I just couldn’t comprehend - or accept- what I was being told.

Even at 18 something in me knew to chuck that factor 60 in the bin upon leaving the hospital and start to question how the medical system actually works.

When I’m in the sun I am happy. Full stop, that’s it. Happy.

I suspect I’m not alone in this.

If sun is life giving what was driving my body to act this way? I immediately booked a week off work (which I remember being very hard for me as I hate to let people down- looking back that was probably part of the problem) and stayed home, I stopped wearing perfumes, lotions, hand wash, make up etc- anything that could have been irritating. I sat in the garden and got sun, ate whole foods, drank loads of water and rested. The rash began to clear, slowly. It came and went over a couple of months.

To this day I don’t know the exact cause but my soul says emotional stress, irritated by environmental toxins. I do know that part of my healing came from sitting in the sun.

That experience changed my relationship with the sun permanently. And it made me start to wonder what we've actually been told about it, and why.

People are always surprised when I tell them I don’t wear sun lotion. Let me explain why…

I believe sun to the skin is anti-ageing. How can it possibly not be when I saw my Sicilian family sun bathing as I was growing up, no one was cowering from the sun or wearing sun lotion and I promise you everyone of my 80/90 year old aunties have no wrinkles and are well and healthy. Is the opposite notion maybe something we are just being fed to believe? I’ve seen another way and I’m grateful for that because it made me question the difference of opinion I saw in England towards the sun.

Have you ever noticed this? The women who haven't followed the rules, who lived differently, who somehow still look their best?

This is what I observed and what I believe, we are all free to follow our own instincts and know what’s best for us.

I would stop with my family in Sicily, we would go to the beaches to ‘take the sun’ as a medicine and beauty tonic.

The Italian ‘to sunbathe’ - Prendere il sole- literally translates into English as ‘To Take The Sun’

The women would all stay cool by having feet in the sea at all times. Come midday they would shelter- preferably nap- and then resume for the afternoon. Morning and late afternoon sun were medicinal. Midday sun was for ‘turning you crazy’.

There are lots of wild dogs in Sicily- of which my dad would call crazy. Which rings true to the phrase only mad dogs and Englishmen are out in the midday sun!

My daughter had jaundice as a baby and I was told to lay her crib in front of a window so the sunlight could heal her. My mom told me I had exactly the same as a baby too. So when I feel my body is craving sunlight it really is at a cellular level.

Today- the day before I am publishing this post- I received an email, one I’m subscribed to, telling me that King’s College Hospital in south London has just opened the first outdoor ward in the UK, a rooftop garden ICU!

This made me stop for a few reasons, one because I was writing this post and well I’m sure that’s the universe letting me know. Two because my mom was in an ICU before she died, there was not even one window in that ward, it brought tears to my eyes to see the first patient in the article being wheeled outside. SUN IS HEALING.

We know this inherently but we lost touch. All hospitals used to have outdoor solariums as standard years ago.

Below I’m sharing beautifying practices, how I personally use the sun through the seasons, the practitioners I trust and a summer solstice ritual using herbs from my own garden.

Find me on Instagram here, my brand Soru Jewellery here and my ShopMy here