Why Don't Australian Women Wear Hats?

I am outrageously curious. I have been living in Perth, Australia for the last four weeks,. I am left wondering: Why don’t Aussie women embrace the sunhat?

On the school run, I am there in the Global Babe strong sun hat, fully covered. The sprint from the car park to the classroom is a safe one for me, but the other mums are fully exposed to the sun.

“Nice hat”, they say, in passing. “Wow I am taken back by your outfit. Where are you going?” the mummies ask. I say “Nowhere. Life’s too short not to look fabulous!” I’m wearing hat and jumpsuit by Global Babe, every day.

So why is this so? When skin cancer is the national cancer in Australia… yes two out of three people will be diagnosed with the disease by the time they are seventy years of age. However, none of the women I am meeting seem concerned about this. Well I am making a grand assumption, but I am assuming they are not, because there is not a sun hat in sight.

I take my observations to Cottesloe Beach, and there I see not a soul wearing ample coverage on their head. Those standouts in a panama or a visor have both sides of their face fully exposed! The hat at Cottesloe is more a tragic fashion accessory than a device, to prevent ageing and the nations’ number one skin disease.

Curious, I could not help but keep up the ad hoc survey. I continued to travel around Perth in my strong hat, everywhere I traverse from car, to café, beach, to office, meeting to meeting in my large navy, red, or pink strong hat. I see divine stunning girls and boys in full sun, in the middle of the day with no hats on! The fact is…they are not going to look so pretty in ten or twenty year’s time, if they stay in the sun without sunscreen and a hat.

Dressed in my Global Babe strong hat, people looked at me strangely. I put my little boy in a navy Global Babe kid’s hat and together we marched mother duck and baby duck spreading a sun sweet message…but people keep looking and wondering.

So finally I obtain my answer. It’s the one I have been looking for! Its five pm, and the sun is strong in the late afternoon, its springtime but it’s already serious sun time in Perth. I race into the local supermarket to buy some dinner. At the check out the girl behind the counter says to me “Oh I just love your hat, it’s amazing.” The lovely young lady with beautiful skin tells me she has two jobs, one in the day as a beautician and one at night at the supermarket. My admiration is instant so I ask her. “Why don’t Australian women wear sun hats? And she tells me straight out:

“Well because they are just totally un-cool.”

In Australia, despite all the education, skin cancer is increasing at four percent every year. More skin cancers occur on the face than any other part of the body.

Global Babe strong hats are UPF 1200 +, and they are the only product to be validated by the British Skin Foundation.

Global Babes are seriously proud to be so un-cool.  xxxx

Image by Precious S2 Photography