Appealing to their vanity may be the best way to encourage young women to practice sun-safe behaviors, a new study shows.

The new research, published in Cogent Psychology,  studied the differences between text-based and visual messages and examined whether warning about future appearance has an impact on changing sun safety behaviors.

After seeing their own face prematurely photoaged using AprilAge’s APRIL® Face Aging Software, young women took two times the number of free sun screen samples and three times the number of skin cancer leaflets compared to those women who had read text information about the damaging nature of the sun, the study showed.

"The results showed that appearance-based messages that used imagery to emphasize sun aging were the most effective,” says study author Jane Ogden BSc (Sus), PhD (London), CPsychol, CHPsych of the University of Surrey in Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom. “This sun aging technology could be used more widely to increase sun screen uptake by young women."