A mum has shared a simple tip to help prevent sunburn during the heatwave – advocating for sun safety after her best friend died just 55 days after being diagnosed with skin cancer.
Leah Mussell, 30, from Isle of Wight, has been a passionate campaigner for skin cancer prevention after friend Zoe Panayi died aged 26 shortly after the heartbreaking diagnosis in 2020.
Leah, a mum-of-three, now runs a Facebook page dedicated to her friend, Zoe’s Law, and recently shared tips to prevent the sun’s rays from damaging her children’s skin – UV stickers.
The stickers work by applying to the skin and putting sun cream over the top of them – then detecting UV rays on the skin, causing them to change colour.
When the stickers change colour, this an alert that you need to reapply sun cream to your child.
While Leah is thrilled with the results and is an avid user, she says they are “hugely undermarketed” – hence her post publicising them to other parents.
For Zoe, the diagnosis came as a huge shock after a seemingly innocent mole on her back turned out to be cancer – which doctors had said raised no cause for concern.
“We discovered that it was that particular mole that started the cancer and spread aggressively throughout her body,” Leah told NeedToKnow.online.
“By the time she suffered any symptoms, unfortunately she was already beyond help, she was diagnosed on the 4 April 2020, she died just 55 days later on the 29 May.”
Zoe left behind two young boys, aged just seven and five.
Leah added: “We are now campaigning for a change, we want every mole, deemed appropriate for removal, tested.
“We need to make this change, we need to save other families heartbreak, and we need to do this, to honour Zoe.”
Leah shares tips and facts about sun safety on the page, in the hope of preventing what happened to Zoe from happening to overs.
Her most recent post about the stickers gained more than 23,000 shares, along with 10,000 comments from people praising the hack.
She said: “I don’t want to preach, I just want people to understand the risks and the consequences involved with poor sun safety.
“A recent study showed that a large number of parents would reapply sun cream their child, but then not do themselves.
“We matter too, and if one person reads our posts changes the way they look at situation, then that’s great.
“Zoe was very passionate about us doing what we could, so I hope I’m doing her proud.”
The UV stickers are currently available in Boots stores and are sold in packs of eight.
