Summertime Splash (FYI if you’re a Gray Malin fan: pre-orders for Escape just opened)
Over the past year, I’ve turned into an obsessive sunscreen-er…on my face. I’m extremely hit and miss with my body for completely obnoxious reasons, like not wanting to gunk up my necklace (and being too lazy to take the damn thing off and put it back on again post-sunscreen). Not wanting to get the tinted sunscreen that I use on my face on the edges of my shirt (and being too lazy to use different products on my face and on my body). Et cetera.
Then, as you may recall from yesterday’s post, I went to see a skin specialist because I was 99.9% certain that my feet were going to fall off, and discovered that the tiny red bumps on my chest that I had assumed were bug bites of some sort (ohpleasegodnotfleas) were actually just…sun damage. Which shouldn’t have surprised me, given that I’ve spent the past few months sort of actively ignoring the fact that my chest is starting to look, very simply…old. And wrinkly. And sort of rough in that way that people’s skin looks when they’ve spent a few years or decades baking in UV light. This is also unsurprising, of course, because the chest is the part of the body (along with the hands) that usually ages the fastest on people, because it gets tons of sun exposure, and is rarely protected. I know all of this, and still did my best ostrich impression and pretended that the skin on my sternum would somehow, miraculously, inexplicably be…fine. Forever Young, and such.
For me, the biggest hurdle with the whole “must apply sunscreen every day” thing is…well, ok, so first the biggest hurdle is the laziness, as we’ve established. But the second-biggest hurdle is the fact that I hate the way most sunscreens feel. I hate the thickness, the gloppiness, the fact that you can practically feel the pimples forming even as you apply it. And I’m writing this very TL;DR post to tell you that I have located a sunscreen that even I am not only “okay” with applying daily…I look forward to applying it.
The bottle is not cute. But stay with me.
Somewhat ironically (or coincidentally? it’s Friday night; my vocabulary is limited), it is the sunscreen made by the same skin clinic (the California Skin Institute) that diagnosed my foot condition. The woman who told me I had sun damage on my chest recommended the sunscreen they make in-house, and I bought it despite the fact that it was twice as much as a drugstore sunscreen and came in a seriously un-cute bottle because I was busy feeling all ashamed of my negligence and just wanted the nice lady to think I was responsible and stuff. And then I went home and put it on my chest, and it is AWESOME AND EVERYTHING I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED A SUNSCREEN TO BE. I need you to know about it.
First, it is SPF 45. Which is great.
Second, it is so light and sheer that it feels just like moisturizer. If I wasn’t already a devotee of this tinted sunscreen, I would totally put it on my face, and feel confident that it wouldn’t result in breakouts.
Third, it smells fresh and wonderful and precisely like a cucumber candle that I had a few years ago and that burned itself into my memory as being one of my all-time favorite scents, and that makes me happy.
Recommended. Buy it here.
