If you know me, you know how seriously I take wearing sunscreen, but I wasn't always like this. I used to bake myself in the sun with ZERO SPF and whatever tanning oil I could get my hands on. It wasn't until I started becoming more conscious about what I was putting into and applying onto my body that I started taking interest in sunscreen. For the past few years, I would wear sunscreen on my face only on days that I was laying out, which I still love to do. Now I make an effort to wear it everyday, even when I'm not laying out, especially because I'm using Retinol a few days a week (check out my Retinol blog post to hear about how much I love that).
I take my skin care very seriously and have a full morning and night time routine that I follow religiously. It just clicked for me one day, why would I spend all of this money on skin care if I'm just going to damage my skin in the sun? Most of my skin care and make up products have SPF in them, but JUST to make sure it's enough, I always use Supergoop Unseen Sunscreen after I finish my morning skin care. I have seen a difference in my skin since wearing sunblock everyday. I used to get a lot of freckles and sunspots on my face, and that doesn't happen much anymore. I still have a slight tan on my face and my rosacea is not flaring up from sun exposure.
Moving onto what I use on my body. I don't really know why, but I was convinced for years that you would NOT get a tan when wearing sunblock. This summer, with the exception of a handful of times I used SPF 30 tanning lotion, I've used COOLA Organic & Fragrance-Free SPF 50. I've still gotten a great tan and will continue to only lay out with sunblock from here on out.
Both products have a Clean at Sephora stamp, meaning it's made without Sulfates SLS and SLES, parabens, formaldehydes, formaldehyde-releasing agents, phthalates, mineral oil, retinyl palmitate, oxybenzone, coal tar, hydroquinone, triclosan, triclocarban. All skincare, hair, and makeup brands with the Clean Seal have less than one percent of synthetic fragrances.
I'm definitely not a sunscreen expert, but I have read about a lot of harmful chemicals in generic sunscreen people use that actually penetrate your skin and go into your bloodstream. I'm going to continue looking into other alternative sunscreens that are safer for my body and still protect me from the sun! My next purchase will be the COOLA Mineral Body Sunscreen SPF 50 and the Supergoop Matte Sunscreen SPF 40. I've already started researching and read that mineral sunscreen is safer because most active ingredients in sunscreen aren't FDA approved and are potentially harmful.
Hopefully my ranting about sunscreen is somewhat helpful! Moral of the story is no one should want and/or be putting themselves at risk for skin cancer, wrinkles or toxic chemicals.
