I opened an umbrella to avoid the sun, but instead of an umbrella, I brought a parasol that was lying around the house. At that moment of hesitation, I thought, Since both provide shade anyway, can't I just use the umbrella instead of the parasol? The idea crossed my mind, wondering if it wouldn't be better to use an umbrella when the sun is scorching hot. I thought we couldn't be the only ones with this curiosity. So, I tried to find if there was any research on the sun protection effect of umbrellas, but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find any related content in domestic research. Therefore, I decided to broaden my search to overseas research papers. After a long search, I came across a paper by researchers from Emory University in the United States in 2012. The researchers from Emory University analyzed the sun protection effects of umbrellas and compared the limits of travel umbrellas and 22 umbrellas. As a result, they found that umbrellas have a sun protection effect ranging from 77% to 99.9%.

It was reported that among them, the travel umbrella showed the highest UV protection rate of 99%. However, not only the umbrella, but the UV protection rate of umbrellas was quite high. Among the 14 umbrellas used in the experiment, all of the black ones had a UV protection rate of over 90%. The white umbrella, which showed the lowest effectiveness, measured 77% UV blockage. It is clear that umbrellas also have an effect on UV protection. However, the paper is based on foreign data, and I wonder if the umbrellas I have are different. We decided to gather various umbrellas to measure their UV protection rates. On the day of the measurement, the weather in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, had a temperature of 32.2 degrees Celsius, and the UV index was high. To ensure accurate measurements, we chose a sunny and hot day, found a sheltered place, and opened the umbrellas. However, the wind started blowing, causing the umbrellas to fly away. We quickly secured the flying umbrellas with clamps and resumed the measurements.

We started the experiment, but no, [laughter]. This time, I also missed. It's ridiculous. After inhaling the hot air and waiting for ultraviolet rays, gradually the clouds passed, oh, here comes the ultraviolet rays. Finally, intense ultraviolet rays started to come down again. We measured the ultraviolet ray levels on the unfolded umbrellas. The ultraviolet ray measurement transmitted into the black umbrella was 15nm, and the measurement inside the white umbrella was 163nm. The results showed a significant ultraviolet ray blocking effect except for the transparent umbrella with a value of 2, similar to the content of the previous paper. However, there might be unexpected variables in our experiment. To draw a conclusion, we felt the need for objective evidence. Therefore, we decided to ask a professional institution for accurate results. Something functional.

It's a bit difficult to conduct interviews like this. There are some similar institutions, so why don't you try contacting research institutes related to participation? It was not easy to find a place to analyze, but we didn't give up and finally found a specialized institution at the end of several institutions. Carrying an umbrella for the experiment, I visited the Cartier test researcher. The researcher, with expert cutting skills, separated the fabric and proceeded to the actual thread count measurement experiment. The researcher conducted meticulous tests several times even with the same fabric. The results of the thread count blocking experiment were like this. Overall, the values ​​were high, but for the same fabric, products with brighter colors showed a slightly lower thread count blocking rate, and for darker colors like black, it was relatively higher among these three.

I can. All the umbrellas we prepared exhibited the UV blocking effect specified in the national standard. How can we interpret these results? First of all, you can think that the technologies applied to umbrellas and parasols are a bit different now. In the case of parasols, technologies that absorb or scatter ultraviolet rays are applied to block the ultraviolet rays. On the other hand, in the case of umbrellas, functions such as water repellency that makes the rainwater bounce off or waterproofing that completely blocks the rainwater are applied. Therefore, it is appropriate to use them according to their purposes. Nowadays, products are generally standardized, so in urgent situations, it seems okay to take an umbrella instead of a parasol. Next, we conducted a test on the UV blocking of parasols, and we found one peculiar point. The UV transmittance of a white parasol is higher than that of a black umbrella.

It's because it came out higher, but I didn't understand that more ultraviolet rays that block light are added. Why is that? You can see that the blocking performance of ultraviolet rays is relatively lower for bright colors, and you can think that darker colors unavoidably absorb more ultraviolet rays, which is a limitation that comes from the colors. Yes, if you can only see an umbrella under the bright sun, it's better to grab that at least. If the umbrella is black, it's even better, and small exploration leads to great achievements.

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