Just when I think I have found THE sunscreens that I plan on using for life, summer brings out a whole new slew of sexy looking sunscreens that I cannot wait to slather all over my face! There were so many new ones I was using this year that I decided to break this round up into two posts - chemical and physical sunscreens. I use chemical sunscreens more often because of the nicer texture and I figured that many of you did as well for the same reasons hence starting the Summer season off with these five chemical lovelies!
I will start by saying that this is my favourite of the group because I can use it as a Vitamin C serum, moisturizer and sunscreen which I never thought possible. Granted, the concentration of Vit C isn't as high as using a separate Vit C serum, but I don't mind at all because the scent and finish of this product is so lovely. Vichy has always had smooth and spreadable sunscreen textures so I was not surprised that this went on my skin so nicely, but this 3-in-1 morning miracle saver gets a huge thumbs up!
COOLA Refreshing Water Mist Sunscreen SPF 18
This sunscreen spray was the product I was most excited about because who doesn't want to feel refreshed AND get SPF protection as well! Yes, this is only SPF 18 which I think is because any higher and it would feel and smell a bit more "chemically" like COOLA's Makeup Setting Spray which has an SPF 30. This spray truly is light as air and smells faintly like coconuts, but take care not to inhale or open your eyes while you are spraying this on your face. Note that the instructions say to spray this first on the hands and then to pat the product on the face, but COOLA's Instagram shows everyone spraying it directly on their faces so I'm sure it's fine! My face gets a slightly dewy finish after spraying, but is a perfectly acceptable level of summer glow!
I raved about this new 3-in-1 product from Garnier a few months ago and loved it so much that I just picked up the Hyalu-Melon Serum Cream as well! Just like the Vichy sunscreen, this is your Vit C serum, moisturizer and SPF. It smells faintly like pineapple and in addition to vitamin C also contains hyaluronic acid, pineapple fruit extract and papain. There is also 72mL of product compared to the conventional 50mL so I knew I could be a bit more generous with application as we should with SPF! The texture is slightly on the liquidy side like a lot of chemical sunscreens and spreads no problem over my skin. There is no pilling of product and just gives my skin a healthy even glow. I thought that this would not be enough as a moisturizer, but my normal-dry skin was happy both in the winter and spring seasons.
I never said that I LOVED all the sunscreens featured here and this is unfortunately the case with this Clarins sunscreen. I honestly don't know if this is new or not, but the packaging and placement of this at my local Shoppers led me to believe it was newish. What got me were the words "dry touch" and it also had a pleasant slightly floral scent. I tried it on my hand and sure, it seemed fairly dry touch in finish so I bought it. When I tried it for the first time on top of my regular skincare routine, it was not as smooth an experience. Firstly, I found that I had to really massage this product into my skin because the texture was not as liquidy as the others so there was a bit of drag. As this is a brightening sunscreen, there is a bit of a white case that mostly goes away with massaging, but it required more effort than I was expecting. Then there was the pilling which was probably the most annoying for me whenever I used serum and moisturizer underneath. It didn't matter whether I waited a few minutes or 10 minutes. I still experienced product pilling and from reviews (I should have read them before purchasing this on a whim) others experienced the same. For a chemical sunscreen, this has the heavy finish of mineral so other than the nice scent and "brightening" effect, I can't in good conscious recommend this as there are many better options.
I think because everyone has talked about this sunscreen so much over the years, I never bothered featuring it in past round ups, but I felt like this year it deserved a place in this year's sunscreen round up because it is one of the nicest SPF 50 sunscreens I use. It is so lightweight is a true dry touch sunscreen. It takes no time at all to massage the product into the skin and has zero fragrance. This works just fine on top of my existing skincare routine without any pilling and doesn't feel sticky or greasy on my face at the end of the day. This sunscreen is a cult classic and I get why!
Hope you found something new to try this summer!
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