This is a sponsored post. If you’re a skincare nerd, you’ll know that mixing foundation with sunscreen is a Bad Thing, even though a lot of people do it, and some brands even recommend it. While mixing a couple of drops of foundation in with your sunscreen solves a lot of problems (takes the edge off any white cast, removes …
There’s a new paper on zinc oxide sunscreens not working and becoming toxic after 2 hours of UV exposure. A lot of people have sent me this paper, so here’s my analysis of it. In short, the researchers found that sunscreen ingredients broke down when mixed with zinc oxide and exposed to UV light, and the degraded mixtures had lower …
As a sunscreen connoisseur who tries out a lot of sunscreens, it always feel premature to make a list of my favourites. I try a lot of sunscreens but I feel like I can never get through as many as I’d like, because unfortunately I have just the one face. I did a list of my favourites at the end …
Warning: Very nerdy content ahead! If you’ve been following sunscreen discourse (apparently this is a thing now) you’ll know that mineral sunscreens mostly work by absorbing UV and only scattering a small amount, in the region of 4-5% across the range of UV. This was quantified in a pretty commonly cited 2016 paper by Curtis Cole, Thomas Shyr and Hao Ou-Yang, “Metal …
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 …
This post is sponsored by Ultra Violette. Exciting news – one of my favourite sunscreen brands, Ultra Violette, is now available in the UK through Space NK. I’ve raved about a few of their products before, but I haven’t really done a comprehensive post going through all of the options and what the differences are. Strap in! (Also: you can …
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 …