Choosing sun cream is something I used to always take lightly. But these days there’s so much more to factor in. Is it natural? Cruelty free? Water resistant? Broad spectrum? Baby safe? Suitable for pregnancy? Recyclable packaging? Reef safe?
Back a couple of decades ago when all I wanted to be was brown, I would slather on tanning oil, use sunbeds (occasionally) and try and get a tan as quickly as possible. The factor I sought was lower to tan quicker.
A friend then told me the biggest beauty secret to staying youthful was using SPF on your face every day. So I started to do this, buying into its benefit. Then I became aware through working with independent experts the value of SPF30 as a minimum that one should use to avoid skin cancer, coupled with the importance of purchasing a UVA & UVB suncream or broad spectrum. In short, UVB is protecting the top layer of your skin and preventing damage. UVA however protects the deeper layers of skin, thus helping to prevent wrinkles.
These days natural, organic ingredients are very du jour but one has to be careful as organic doesn’t mean it doesn’t have chemicals in still. For example during my first pregnancy, I chose a lovely suncream from Holland & Barrett which was organic, paraben free etc but actually, it does have a chemical sunscreen in it from an organic compound. But something I also learnt more recently was that some of the common chemicals (such as octinoxate and oxybenzone) damage the world’s reefs which are sadly deteriorating at rapid rates already. They do so by bleaching the coral and making it more at risk of infection so I’d definitely avoid these now.
The best bet for something safe for reefs, not to mention babies, toddlers and pregnancy, is titanium oxide and zinc oxide as together these tackle both types of rays naturally and do not cause any other effects or leech into breast milk etc. These bounce the sun’s rays off the skin as opposed to absorbing them like the chemical formulas do. Some formulas are whiter than others, but if you pick a good one, you don’t end up looking like a glow-worm!
Also now the issue of packaging waste in beauty is quite topical, so more and more brands are getting on board with this and using recyclable materials and not boxing products either. If you look at the back of the product it should say if it’s recyclable or made from such.
So this year and last, I invested in Green People SPF30 which ticks all the boxes and I have found it to be not very whitening on application. Wholefoods – which also stocks this – came up trumps with a tube which I use for my face, called Acorelle an SPF50 which although it isn’t specifically a facial one, but for babies, it works. I also liked the look of Neutrogena and Aveeno SPFs in general so may well end up trying them another time.
I found this chart useful for understanding the ingredients.
Check out Green People here
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