There are so many myths around mineral or physical sunscreens – the ones with zinc oxide and titanium dioxide – and how they’re supposedly better than chemical sunscreens with scarier names like oxybenzone and octocrylene. And it’s usually zinc oxide that gets all the hype. Some of these advantages are true… but so many are just myths. And a lot …
There’s been a recent study published about the sunscreen ingredient octocrylene turning into benzophenone over time. According to the paper, “benzophenone is a mutagen, carcinogen, and endocrine disruptor”. I wasn’t going to do a proper analysis of this paper because it only really got lots of attention in France and not many other places, but then I saw that I …
Being the “sunscreen nerd” person, I get a lot of questions about unusual sunscreen products and whether or not their claims work out. Last time I talked about the Colorescience powder sunscreen and the Skinnies “pea-sized amount” claim. Related post: Do They Work? Colorescience SPF Powder, Skinnies “Pea-Sized Amount” (with video) This time I’m talking about two more products that people …
I’m taking a short break from proper posts (will be back at the end of the week), so here’s some other stuff you might want to check out in the meantime: Skincare School Podcast I’ve teamed up with Adore Beauty (a popular Australian online beauty retailer) for the Skincare School Podcast! This is a 12-episode series on everything skincare, and …
The Inkey List are a brand that I generally quite like (well not anymore, now that I’ve seen their response to me raising this issue, and some of their other practices). They’re probably the main competitor to The Ordinary, which I also quite like. Both brands have lots of products, and many of them work well on my skin. They’re …
We talk a lot about how to use your products, but this post is about how NOT to use your products. Here are some of the mistakes I see people making when using their products, and why you shouldn’t do that. The video is here on YouTube, keep scrolling for the text version. Putting the dropper on your face I …
I’ve talked about visible light and blue light, and their effects on pigmentation in lots of detail before. There’s been more studies done since then – fortunately my conclusions are still correct! In short, the vast majority of us don’t have to worry about visible light or blue light coming from our screens. There just isn’t enough light coming from …
I’ve had a lot of people ask me to explain the nitty gritty behind how sunscreen ingredients work. I warned everyone it would be super nerdy and really quite complicated, but a lot of people said it was fine… so here it is: the deep dive into how sunscreen ingredients work! A warning: this goes into physical chemistry, at upper …