How Catherine Breed Got Her Skin Ready for a 900-Mile Swim
- Christopher Schmidt, MD
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
On July 1, Catherine Breed pushed off from the Oregon border and started swimming the length of California. Nine hundred miles down the coast to Mexico, a stage swim no one has ever completed. Everyone at Dermasport is proud to be part of it. Before Catherine got in the water, she sat down with our founder, Dr. Christopher Schmidt, to plan how to protect her skin through four months of daily sun and saltwater.
Dr. Schmidt is a dermatologist and the founder and creator of Dermasport, the sunscreen and skincare line built for athletes. Dermasport is dermatologist-developed and trusted by Olympians like Nathan Adrian and Elizabeth Beisel, and it serves as the Official Sunscreen of the U.S. Lifesaving Association, the Official Skincare Partner of U.S. Masters Swimming, and the Official Sunscreen of Swim California. That last partnership started with Catherine herself, who had already relied on Dermasport's Clear Body SPF 50 through earlier record swims, including her lap of Lake Tahoe, so building this regimen together was a natural next step.
Sitting down together, Dr. Schmidt and Catherine mapped out a routine she could follow anywhere on the course: broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen, reapplied every two hours and after every swim. The Clear Body SPF 50 spray covers her body, and the SPF 50 Facial Sunscreen protects the areas that take the worst of the reflected UV off the water, the face, ears, neck, and shoulders.
It is a simple system, and that is the point. Catherine cannot stop mid-swim to fix a gap, so the sunscreen has to go on and stay on.
We could not be more excited to follow Catherine down the coast.
The full story of her skin check, her regimen, and the science behind it is on the Dermasport blog. You can follow every mile on the live tracker below.
Swim California Live Tracker
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