Follow-up with Lab for Effectiveness of Sun Tan Lotions.

So Jordan and I just finished our lab in Chem to find the effectiveness of different sun tan lotions. Although at first the lab seemed like it would be pretty tough, once we figured out how to use everything correctly it was actually fun. The spectrophotometer was a cool machine to use for this experiment and it is amazing how it can easily calculate the amount of absorbtion of a certain suntan lotion by using just a cuvette, sun tan lotion, and isopropyl alcohol. During the experiment Jordan and I used 3 different kinds of sun tan lotion, Coppertone Sport which had an SPF of 15, Coppertone SPF 4 sunscreen, and Hawaiin Tropic SPF 30 Plus. Since the desired UVA wavelength was found to be 400 nanometers to 315 nanometers we decided to use three different wavelengths to test the different effectiveness (340, 370, and 400). Each absorbtion for the different wavelengths had different results, while some were more effective for one wavelength, another was more effective for a different wavelength. For the wavelength set at 340 Coppertone Sport proved to have the best effectiveness while Hawaiin Tropic was second and Coppertone SPF 4 was third. At the wavelength of 370 the effectiveness from most effective to the least effective was Hawaiin Tropic, Coppertone SPF 4, and Coppertone Sport. Finally the third wavelength of 400 ranged from the most of effective to the least effecctive of Hawaiin Tropic, Coppertone SPF 4, and Coppertone Sport. Each result proved that different sun tan lotions may be more effective at one wavelength compared to another wavelength, but also results may vary since a UVA wavelength was used rather than a UVB wavelength.