Sample Saturday: The Sunscreen Edition

I decided to do a little something special for this Sample Saturday. We’re already a whole week through June, so it’s time to start talking about sun protection. Honestly, I can talk about that all year long, but it’s especially important during the summer months when the sun is out for long periods of time.

In this post I’m reviewing several deluxe sunscreen samples from Sephora’s Sun Safety Kit. I divided them into three groups: chemical sunscreens, physical sunscreens, and example sunscreens I am going to avoid along with my reasoning behind that decision. Before you take my ramblings below to heart, remember that I am not a skincare specialist and these are just my personal opinions as a consumer only. You may find more information on companies’ websites.

Physical sunscreens
Physical sunscreens work by blocking the UV rays “physically” by creating a protective layer on top of the skin. The main ingredients in physical sun blocks are titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. This is my preferred type of sun protection because they start working immediately after the application and are generally safer than chemical sunscreens.

Shiseido Ultimate Sun Protection Cream+ Broad Spectrum SPF 50+ For Face
Shiseido is famous not only for their fantastic skin care and creamy color cosmetics, but also for their sunscreens. I really liked the formulation of this cream: although it was fairly rich my skin absorbed it pretty quickly. It contains four different active ingredients, both physical and chemical (mostly physical) to provide nearly perfect protection from all three types of UV rays. It also doesn’t have that typical sunscreen-y fragrance to it, and instead smells like a regular moisturizer. Because it’s a little on the heavy side, I would recommend it for people with dry skin. I noticed that it leaves a slight white residue, which might be noticeable if you have darker than medium complexion.
Overall: 4.5/5
Purchase: Yes

Josie Maran Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 40
This purely physical sunblock was my favorite facial moisturizer from this whole batch. It’s lightweight, has a very light pleasant fragrance, absorbs very quickly, and has argan oil included in the formula. It can work amazingly well as a makeup primer during the warmer months, too. I absolutely loved it and might even pick up the full size!
Overall: 5/5
Purchase: Yes

Clarins UV Plus HP Day Screen High Protection SPF 40
For some reason I always think of Clarins as a “mature lady’s brand”, their products just seem so classic and boring. The oil-free formula of this sunscreen is very lightweight, almost too runny even, and felt more like a serum than a sunscreen. However, it only contains a single sunscreen ingredient – titanium dioxide – which alone doesn’t protect against the entire spectrum of UVA rays aka the main culprit behind skin cancer and photo aging.
Overall: 3.5/5
Purchase: No

Chemical sunscreens
Chemical sunscreens work by absorbing UV rays and must be applied 30 minutes prior to sun exposure. There are over a dozen of chemical sunscreen ingredients, but the main ones are avobenzone, oxybenzone, octinoxate, octisalate, and octylcrylene. Chemical sunscreens are known for often irritating the skin, some of them may even produce free radicals which ironically causes skin aging – the very thing we’re trying to protect against by using them in the first place.

Lancome Bienfait Multi-Vital SPF 30 Cream
This is a sunscreen that looks and works like a moisturizer, it leaves the skin soft and supple, with a gentle powdery finish. It contains a nice mix of three safe chemical sunscreens which stabilize each other, so overall I had a very good impression of this product, and would recommend it to anybody who can’t use physical sunscreens for some reason (allergies etc).
Overall: 5/5
Purchase: Yes

Boscia Self-Defense Vital Antioxidant Moisture Broad Spectrum SPF 30
This fragrance-free sunscreen is actually not very moisturizing at all, it’s fairly runny and would probably work well for people with very oily skin. I know how hard it can be to find products for the summer when pretty much anything you put on your face just melts off in a couple hours. Well, this sunscreen serum (let’s call it that) would stay pretty well without adding any extra weight to the skin. It protects with a mix of two chemical sunscreens: avobenzone which is mainly safe, and octinoxate, which was linked to potentially disrupting thyroid hormones and brain signaling. Unfortunately for the creators of this concoction, the already unstable avobenzone becomes even more so in the presence of octinoxate and breaks down into unknown chemicals in the sunlight, which makes this product pretty much useless and even potentially harmful. That last part is the reason why I personally wouldn’t even consider purchasing it, but not everyone is as paranoid as I am about these things.
Overall: 2/5
Purchase: No

L’Occitane Immortelle Brightening Hand Care SPF 20
Oh, I’m sure you guys know this by now, but I’m a huuuuge L’Occitane junkie! I love their products to pieces and at one point I have tried literally every single product they released. I haven’t been keeping up with their releases lately, because I have access to so many other products I would rather try now, but that doesn’t make my love for this french brand any weaker. So, this is actually not a face sunscreen, but a hand sunscreen. Your eyes, neck, and hands are the main things that can be a dead give away of your age, which is why I think it’s important to take great care of all three. First of all, this cream smells absolutely divine. I currently use a facial serum from this same line and I just sit there and take a few minutes just to smell it on my hands every evening, it’s that good. But when I took a look at the active ingredients, that’s where I thought that ignorance truly is bliss. By reading the previous product review, you already know that avobenzone doesn’t work well together with octinoxate. Now to top it all, the other two ingredients aren’t helping the situation here either: octisalate, while being harmless on its own, has a quality of increasing the absorption of other ingredients; and octocrylene produces free radicals when exposed to UV light. So we have here one ingredient that can’t stand the other, one ingredient that’s linked to thyroid problems, one ingredient that breaks down into free radicals, and one ingredient that will help absorb all of that junk deeper into the skin, which will cause DNA damage and aging. The circle is complete. Well, I’m sad that I won’t be able to enjoy this hand cream now, but there are other much safer sunscreen options for me out there.
Overall: 1.5/5
Purchase: No

Sunscreens I avoid
And here is just a couple examples of products I avoid, no matter how good a brand is. The main reason for doing that is the common active ingredient – oxybenzone – that is ranked pretty high on the list of hazardous cosmetic ingredients on EWG.org Oxybenzone is linked to the production of free radicals that can interfere with cellular signaling, cause mutations, lead to cell death and may be implicated in cardiovascular disease [ref: Hanson KM, Gratton E, Bardeen CJ. 2006. Sunscreen enhancement of UV-induced reactive oxygen species in the skin. Free Radic Biol Med 41(8): 1205-1212].

About the ingredient:

“Oxybenzone is a sunscreen ingredient associated with photoallergic reactions. This chemical absorbs through the skin in significant amounts. It contaminates the bodies of 97% of Americans according to Centers for Disease Control research.”

To put that into human language, it often causes allergic reactions, rapidly absorbs through the skin, and accumulates in your body, which is never a good thing with chemicals. Its use in cosmetics is already restricted in Japan, and some european countries are soon to follow.

Okay, this was probably wayyyyy more than you ever wanted to know about these samples (and then some), but I tend to talk a lot about certain topics, sunscreen being one of them. You can find more information about sunscreens and other skincare ingredients on this site if you are ever concerned about the safety of any product or ingredient.

Disclosure: I bought this.