On the sunny side of the street

We've only had mass-produced sunscreen for about a century. How come? Check out the roles played by class, race, Coco Chanel

- Swetha Sivakumar

If mass-produced sunscreen is less than a century old, part of the reason boils down to class.

Key inventions tend to benefit those in power, and through most of settled history, the rich only sporadically spent time outdoors. It was farmers, sailors and soldiers who toiled in the sun, and, sadly, no one was about to birth an industry to care for their skin. Then came Coco Chanel.

Apparently, the healthy tan as a status symbol can be traced to this iconic French designer (or so the legend goes). In the 1920s, she returned from a trip aboard a yacht with bronzed skin, and suddenly the pale tints that had been fashionable for centuries was no longer the aesthetic ideal.

As the elite sought out a pale tan, they realised they needed protection from the long-term ageing effects and short-term blemishes and blotches of direct exposure, and the sunscreen industry took off.

Early innovations came from a Swiss chemist and mountaineer, Franz Greiter. In 1938, he returned from Mount Piz Buin badly sunburnt and created Gletscher Crème (Glacier Cream).