By Dr Joan van Wyngaard — registered pharmacist, PhD in phytomedicine, founder and formulator of Vitant Skincare. And a runner.

On Sunday 13 June 2027, the Comrades Marathon will be run for the 100th time. Between now and then, tens of thousands of South Africans are going to spend more hours outdoors than they have in years. Long runs at sunrise. Time trials at five in the afternoon. Ninety-kilometre weeks through a Highveld summer and a Cape winter.

Every one of those athletes will have a training plan. Most will have a nutrition plan. Many will have a coach, a physio, a sleep target and a watch that tells them off for standing still.
Almost none of them will have a plan for the organ absorbing all of it. Skin is the largest organ in the human body — roughly two square metres of it — and it is the only one you take outside, uncovered, for four hours at a time.

Click here to read more