SPF might not seem terribly mysterious. Anyone who wears sunblock is accustomed to seeing the abbreviation, and it’s no mystery what it stands for “Sun Protection Factor.”
But did you know that the first sunblock was not, in fact, created for sunny summer days? Nope! It was invented by a Swiss chemist with a love of mountain climbing, named Franz Greiter. He was tired of getting sunburned during his treks up and down the mountains, so in 1946 he invented the first sunblock…which he called “glacier cream.”
I just love irony like that.
It didn’t take long for those who loved the sun to pick up on his invention and start to use it for other outdoor activities. By 1954, people were using the term sunscreen (already in existence for physical items that blocked the sun) for the lotion. In the 1960s, Greiter came up with the SPF rating for his lotions, and that rating system is still what we use today!
Well…sort of. The idea behind it is that however long a person can usually be in the sun without getting burned is your base number–so, say, 15 minutes or so. Then you factor in the lotion, and however long you can now go without being burned is your end number. So you divide to get the SPF. So if you can now go 30 minutes without a burn, then the SPF is 2 (which is fact what that original “glacier cream” was rated). Modern lotions with high SPFs still recommend you reapply more frequently than the rating would indicate. 😉
As for that original inventor? His company is still making sunscreen, and they specialize in high SPFs!
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
