Surfer Jake ‘The Snake’ Paterson created We Are Feel Good Inc. sunscreen brand to spread skin cancer awareness

“For men, until something goes wrong, they say ‘I’ll deal with it.” Those are the words of WA surfing great Jake Paterson, who’s on a mission to change the attitude of some men when it comes to skin checks. Take it from the retired professional spent three decades on the World Surf League and has had two major skin cancers removed. His journey is part the reason he created sunscreen brand We Are Feel Good Inc. with skin specialist and cosmetic physician Scott McGregor. “We should be about preventing skin cancer in the first place, men are too cool for school to get checked, there’s no excuse really, it’s a definite problem in Australia for sure,” he said. The 50-year-old shared his experience with skin cancer that resulted in 12 stitches on his head while urging others to get regular skin checks. Paterson had recurring scabs on his head and arm so he finally decided to get them checked. “These little scabs turned into cancer, it’s pretty heavy, but lucky we got it in time,” he said. “I now go get my skin checked every six months because of the history of it all.” Losing his hair during his mid-20s, Paterson has been a bald surfer for most of his career and when he first started out in the early 1990s, sun protection wasn’t like we have today. “Education about sun protection was not good, I retired in 2006 and even then it was still developing,” he said. “I wish I knew what I know now when I was starting, so I’m trying to pass the message on—not just to bald surfers but surfers in general—protection in the sun is super important.” Seven years in the making, We Are Feel Good Inc. began as a conversation around the campfire while on a holiday in the State’s north. “Scott said we can do better than this and I jumped on board because I had never found a good sunscreen, I wanted something that lasted in the water longer, wasn’t greasy, didn’t run into my eyes, so we spent a year-and-a-half developing products. “I was the guinea pig going surfing every day with all these different samples on my head.” With the brand hitting shelves in New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, China and Europe, he hopes to break into the US market within two years. Paterson also revealed that while he still loves to surf, he’s taken more of a liking to golf. “I play more golf, I’m getting better at golf and worse at surfing,” he said. “I’m not in that competitive mind set (anymore), 30 years of my life every surf was for a reason, to compete to get better, I tried to get that out of my system which was hard but I’ve finally done it I think.”