As the bikini turns 60, it's entering the electronic age with a new model featuring a built-in alarm to warn wearers to get out of the sun-and ease concerns that the scanty swimsuits damage the health.
The American Cancer Society advises that the best way to lower the risk of skin cancer, the most common form of the disease in humans, is to avoid too much exposure to the sun and other sources of ultraviolet light.
Canadian company Solestrom has come up with a new bikini with a UV meter built into its belt and an alarm that beeps to tell wearers when to head to the shade.
"There's so much concern about sun exposure and skin cancer that we saw the demand and designed something to be safe for the wearer," Solestrom spokeswoman Emily Garassa said.
Garassa said the meter on the US$190 bikini displays a level of UV intensity on a scale from 0 to 20. A person's sensitivity to UV depends mainly on skin type, but generally three to ?ve would be considered moderate strength, 8-10 very high and anything above 11 extreme.
Garassa said the company was already seeing high demand from Australia and South Africa, which have the world's highest skin cancer rates. The United States has about one million new skin cancer cases each year. Despite increasing awareness of the sun's dangers, sales remain strong for the bikini.
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