We asked you last week if you wear sunscreen every day and we’re pretty sure you broke our record on number and length of comments (if you haven’t yet weighed in, and haven’t yet seen the awesome still of Spicoli, please click here). Now we want to get started, but first a checklist that we are using to consider the performance of a screen:
- It can’t cause zits.
- It can’t cast us in a white glow.
- It can’t be make us look like we’ve been rolling around in vaseline.
- It can’t be overly matte either.
- It has to work well.
- It has to wear well under makeup.
- It can’t smell gross.
Obviously all product considerations produce a sort of mental check list in our minds, but sunscreen is especially tough because there’s a demand for form and function that you just can’t fake. With an antiager, you can’t tell right away if it works (probably because most don’t! Ha.). But if a sunscreen doesn’t work, you’re a sad, burned mess.
To get the ball rolling on our Five Face Sunscreens We Love series, I’ll start with a vegan one.
100% Pure’s Argan Oil Moisturizer SPF 30
I test drove this puppy in New York for a couple of weeks and liked it a lot, but let’s be real: a sunscreen that performs on a girl who spends all day inside in an overcast city isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But I just got back from five days with Alexandra in sunny Los Angeles, where we spent a lot of time outside (for me, anyway), and I am happy to report that it worked like a charm! No burns, no major freckling, nada.
The lotion feels very light. Though it’s technically a moisturizer, it’s definitely too light for me on its own for hydration. I have been using a plumping, hydrating hydrosol and another day cream under my 100% Pure and have been loving it. It’s very cosmetically appealing: it feels light on my face, makeup sits nicely on top of it, and it hasn’t caused any breakouts—all of which made me wonder how good it could possible be as a screen, which is where the ingredients come in:
Ingredients: Active Ingredients: 24.8 % Zinc Oxide
Inactive Ingredients: Organic Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice1, Rgania Spinosa Kernel (Argan) Oil, Rosa Canina Seed (Rosehip Oil) Extract, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Extracts of: Euphorbia Cerifera Cera (Candelilla Wax), Organic Camellia Sinensis (Green Tea) Leaf2, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf, Origanum Vulgar (Oregano), Thymus Vulgaris (Thyme), Citrus Grandis (Grapefruit Seed) Seed, Hydrastis Canadensis (Goldenseal), Lonicera Caprifolium (Japanese Honeysuckle) and Cinnamomum Zeylanicum Bark (Cinnamon)
Big high five on this one! Stay tuned for the next four. Have you tried one you love?
It’s that time of year, chicks: The time when people start looking for that perfect sunscreen for their face—one that won’t cast them in a white glow, won’t poison aquatic life and won’t give them a face full of pimples. Also, it has to smell nice, absorb well, wear nicely under makeup, and not leave the skin too shiny. But not too matte either, am I right?
It’s a tall order! And since the questions have already started rolling in from you guys, we’re going to do another Five ____ We Love series, only instead of reviewing five amazing foundations, we’re going to review sunscreens.
But first, the titular question: Do you wear sunscreen every day? You know the RIGHT answer is “Yes! Even in the winter! Even when I’m at the office all day!” But let’s be real. Do you really? Question not rhetorical. And no judgments! We want to know the truth.
Dish.
Still from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Next time you’re ogling pictures of Gisele in a bikini, look for her cojones—cause she’s got ‘em! We’ve been waiting with baited breath for the supermodel to admit that she’s a clean girl, but she did even better. Here’s what the Huffington Post is reporting:
Last week, the world’s highest-paid supermodel angered dermatologists around the world by declaring sunscreen a “poison.”
“I cannot put this poison on my skin,” Gisele said, according to The Daily Mail. “I do not use anything synthetic.”
We’d heard from a few sources that Gisele was all about clean beauty, and then last year she came out with a three-product natural line called Sejaa. Of course, she’s doing some damage control on the poison comment but she’s not fully taking it back either. Here’s what she wrote on her blog:
Hi all
I would like to clarify the misunderstanding about the use of sunblock. I do use sunblock but also I try my best not to be exposed to the sun when it is too strong. My line of skincare products are all natural and do not contain SPF. I feel we all need to pay more attention to what we are putting on our skin. I definitely know the importance of using sunscreen and I try to look for more natural options. This is a place where they have a list of some more natural option sunscreens, check it out here.
We love that even though she’s backpedaling, she’s still pushing clean (and nice shout out for the Daily Green!). She’d make a lovely spokesmodel for natural beauty, don’t you agree? Anybody, Gisele for Clean Queen?
This is our favorite makeup application trick because it appeals to our completely lazy side while also working and looking nice. Here goes: Instead of layering on your lotion or sunscreen (or both) and then finishing with mineral powder, foundation or heavy concealer, try a two-fer! Squeeze some lotion, argan oil, coconut oil or suncreen into your palm, then sprinkle about a quarter teaspoon of loose mineral powder into the goop. Rub your hands together to blend, and then sweep your hands over your face, starting at the center and moving outward.
You basically get the effect of a nice tinted moisturizer (with SPF!), but with a few perks.
First, because the minerals market is so huge, it’s easier to color-match perfectly to your skin tone. It may take some doing, and you might want to combine two different colors to get it just right, but it’s doable.
Second, the pure oils and the minerals are known quantities. There won’t be any surprise reactions to mystery ingredients.
Third, because minerals can look like garbage on dehydrated skin, this eliminates that problem altogether by building in the moisture and adding a little sheen.
And finally, because you get a nice light coverage, you don’t have to worry about the maskface that sometimes comes with foundation or poorly applied powder.
As always, make sure your minerals are clean—no parabens, silicone or extra crap in there—and same goes for whatever you’re mixing it with.
Have you tried it? Got any other application tips to share?
We have a little secret. Maybe not something to bring up at a dinner party or in mixed company, but here among friends? Why not.
Alexandra and I both hate soap.
Aside from certain obvious body parts (the sexytime ones, and our pits), we don’t use the stuff. Basic hygiene, yes? Soaping up our…calves? And elbows? And the small of our backs? Why on earth!
Since we both stopped using soap, we find our skin much softer and naturally balanced, which obviates the need for body lotion. We like this, because it supports one of the central tenets in the book, which is that the fewer products you use, the fewer products you need. And when you’re buying less stuff, you can afford to get things you absolutely love when you do go shopping.
Back to faces for a second. We won’t use soap or anything foaming on our mugs. Our skin needs the natural oils that live on its surface and below. When we strip that with harsh, carcinogen-contaminated chemicals, our skin acts like a moody teenager.
Still, if you wear sunscreen and makeup, and who doesn’t, you obviously have to wash at the end of the day. I use a new Tata Harper cleanser some days, and an Evan Healy milk on others (reviews to come!). In the morning, I gently wipe my face with a clean wash cloth and water. That’s it.
Alexandra has lately been experimenting with honey. When she bothers to wash her face at all, she skews more DYI: a little honey as a cleanser here, coconut oil to remove makeup there. The point for both of us: Our bodies are marvellous! They do all kinds of magic tricks on their own. Let them be, and they work juuuust fine. And no, you won’t stink, we promise.
What about you? Do you use soap?
Holy crap is there anything harder than finding a good clean face screen that won’t break you out or cast your face in an eerie white glow? (That’s a rhetorical question, but the answer is yes: finding a good clean deodorant is actually harder. But only by a smidge.)
Anyway, in my hunt for the perfect sunscreen, I’ve tried a zillion and found a few I really like. Readers who have been with us for a bit know I love Lavera’s, and last summer I used Jurlique’s Age-Defying SPF 15 and reviewed it in our book. I’d been hearing good thing about Vive Sana Solar to Polar Ultra sunscreen, so I was thrilled when I got my hands on a tube from Spirit Beauty Lounge.
Vive Sana, which has an SPF of 40, calls itself the strongest all-natural sunscreen on earth. Bold! But does it live up to the promise?
Yuh huh. Sure seems to. I’ve been using it for a week now in sticky gross 95-plus degree weather in New York and it stays put all day, offers great protection (no new freckles!), hasn’t given me any problems (by which I mean zits), wears well under makeup or as a primer, and is loaded with skin-friendly ingredients.
The actives here are zinc and titanium dioxide (really hoping we don’t get bad news about the latter, but Vive doesn’t seem to use nanoparticles), it contains free-radical-eating antioxidants like green tea, soothing chamomile, beeswax and some skin-compatible oils.
As for the look: It’s not shiny, it’s not masky-matte. It’s just right. And because you only need a little at a time, I feel okay about the $29 pricetag.
Have you found one you like?
This is easily becoming the hot topic of the summer, and thank god for that. There’s a great discussion over here at the Times that is worth reading, and we’ve covered it on the GOOD blog as well. Bottom line: Use physical blockers like titanium dioxide and zinc oxide in non-nanoparticle form, not chemical screeners like oxybenzone.
Sounds easy, right? Notsomuch. I had a beach date for Monday, so on Sunday, off I went to Target to get some screen for my body. I’ve been using Lavera’s Anti-Aging Facial Sunscreen for my mug, and I love it so much that I actually look forward to putting it on in the morning (not kidding).
But the tube is small and I am not—plus I was going to be sharing it. Pale adult-size people in 100 degree weather weren’t going to go too far with a 1.6 oz. of face cream.
So Target. How we love you. We write about you in the book for being one of the first mass retailers to embrace truly clean cosmetics. We buy our Seventh Generation detergent from you, because we know you’ll always have it in stock. And we really, really like your bronzers. Which is why it was super disappointing when I cruised the sunscreen section and found zero truly clean sunscreens, and only one that had titanium or zinc as the active.
The good news is there was one at all. The bad news is, it contained 39 other ingredients, several of which are on our black list, and have no business being anywhere near a baby (or, you know, me). BHT in a baby screen? And vitamin A? Three different silicones? Really?
I bought it anyway—that’s actually me in the picture!—and it worked. But I won’t be using it again.
