The spots you forget to protect in sport

Summary

In sport, you protect the forehead and cheeks, and forget the rest: back of the neck, ears, nose, crown of the head, backs of the hands, lips. Those are precisely the most exposed spots depending on posture. Knowing them means applying where it counts — face with the mist, the rest by zone.

The problem

You put your sun protection on "the face," quickly, and off you go. The classic result at the end of a session: a peeling nose, a red neck, burning ear tips. Small spots, often forgotten, but heavily exposed.

The problem isn't the amount of product, it's the map: you don't know precisely where you're exposed depending on your sport and posture. A cyclist bent over the bars, a runner with head up, and a trail runner with cap jammed on don't present the same surfaces to the sun.

The mechanism

Exposure depends on the skin's orientation relative to the sun and on what your kit leaves uncovered. Here are the recurring forgotten spots.

The back of the neck. As soon as you tilt your head — cyclist on the bars, runner watching the ground, golfer over the ball — the back of the neck becomes a horizontal surface offered up to the sun. A standard cap doesn't cover it.

The ears. Small, vertical, often sticking out past the cap or helmet. Almost never protected, and among the first to burn.

The nose and cheekbones. The most prominent points of the face, so the most directly exposed. They also take reflected radiation (road, sand, snow).

The crown of the head (hair parting). With short, thinning or tied-back hair, the scalp is directly hit — a spot you never think to protect.

The backs of the hands. In cyclists especially, hands resting for hours on the bars, permanently exposed. It's one of the most underestimated spots in endurance.

The lips. Thin, with little natural defence, lip skin dries out and burns in the sun and wind.

Key point: each spot calls for its own answer. The face mist covers the face; the neck, hands and lips are other gestures (clothing, dedicated product). You don't transpose one product from one spot to another.

In practice

For the face — nose, cheekbones, forehead, contour — TIVA's [PERFORMANCE SUNMIST] is a sun mist, SPF 30, UVA+UVB, applied hands-free: shake, mist from 15-20 cm away, eyes closed, let it dry for a second. It's invisible, no white cast, sweat-resistant, doesn't sting the eyes, doesn't run, non-photosensitising, dermatologically tested. The mist covers the often-forgotten contours of the face well (nose, cheekbones) and reapplies every 2 hours and after heavy sweating.

For the non-face spots, the logic is the fitting complement:

• Neck and ears: cap with a neck flap, buff, or dedicated protection on these spots.
• Crown of the head: headwear; failing that, protect the parting.
• Backs of the hands (cycling): gloves, or protection on the exposed skin.
• Lips: balm or stick with a dedicated UV index.

Honest framing: no protection is a "total sunblock" or good the whole day untouched. An SPF 30 filters a large share of UVB as long as you reapply it, and covering mechanically (fabric, cap) stays the most reliable protection for small spots.

Verdict

The athlete's sunburn almost always lands on the same forgotten spots: neck, ears, nose, hands, lips. The fix is a map rather than a vague gesture: an SPF 30 UVA+UVB mist on the face, redone every 2 hours, and a fitting complement for each non-face spot.

FAQ