Beauty 101: WTF is SPF, or, The Sunscreen In Your Foundation Isn't Enough
Do you remember in 2011 when Congress voted against the National Institute of Medicine, and against a 2009 recommendation that the food that public schools provide should have more nutritious value in order to reduce childhood obesity and lower the national cost of healthcare to say that the tomato sauce barely covering a rubbery slice of cafeteria pizza was enough to constitute a vegetable? If you don’t, or you’re not an American, that’s a real thing that happened. Pizza = vegetable. You can read about it here.
Maybe our lawmakers are simply unaware of vegetables. Or maybe they don’t know how vegetables work. Perhaps, in keeping with the common perception that many of our lawmakers are petulant children, they just find tomatoes icky. That’s certainly not for me to say, but often times lack of information results in improper usage. So, keep that allegory in mind as we go on a little sun care journey. Today we’re going to cover different types of SPF, different types of UV rays, some of my favorite facial sunscreens, and why you deserve better than the SPF in your foundation or moisturizer. Spoiler alert: That SPF is doing you as much good as the sauce on your USDA approved pizza.
What is SPF?
SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor, and it is a measurement of how well a product can protect your skin from redness caused by UVB rays. There are different grades of SPF (SPF 15, 30, 50 are the most common) and although the scale is non-linear and the math of it absolutely escapes me, the basic thought is that whatever SPF you’re using will prevent reddening that many times longer. Say you turn red after 10 minutes in the sun, SPF 30 will, theoretically, prevent visible redness 30 times longer.
Most dermatologists recommend either SPF 15 (blocks 93% of incoming UVB rays) or SPF 30 (blocks 97% of incoming UVB rays), and consider SPF 50+ (SPF 50 blocks 98% of incoming UVB rays) to be extreme sun protection. that 1% of difference may not seem significant, but if you are photosensitive, burn easily, are on medication that cause photosensitivity, or have a history of sun cancer, that 1% may be important to you.
What are UVA and UVB rays?
UVA and UVB rays are the two types of ultra violet radiation produced by the sun that can reach our skin, and they act very differently. Neither are visible on the light spectrum, but both reach our skin and can cause damage. UVB rays are the ones that cause visible redness, and are what most sunscreens are formulated to protect against. However, UVB rays have a smaller wavelength which means that they typically can’t penetrate as deeply through glass and cloud cover, and don’t penetrate as deeply into the skin as UVA.
UVA rays are the real bastards, IMO. For starters, UVA has a much longer wavelength, and is present literally whenever the sun is up. UVA accounts for 95% of the UV that reaches our skin, and it penetrates much deeper into the layers of our tissue than UVB can. When UVA penetrates our skin it causes our melanocytes (the cells responsible for producing melanin) to turn on which can cause tanning. However, over exposure to UVA can cause significant damage deep in our skin, and the bullshit of it all is that we don’t feel UVA, so we don’t know when we’re getting a UVA burn. And because UVA can penetrate cloud cover and glass, and we can’t even feel it when it’s happening, the risk of UVA damage is considerable. UVA radiation damage can cause mutations in our melanocytes, which can turn into melanoma. Which brings us to why we should be looking for broad spectrum sunscreen.
What is broad spectrum sunscreen?
Broad spectrum sunscreens are formulated to protect your skin from both UVA and UVB rays. SPF specifically measures protection from redness, but you need to make sure that while you’re being protected from an obvious burn, you’re also being protected from the damage caused by UVA in the deeper layers of your skin. If a sunscreen is labeled as “Broad Spectrum” that means the UVA protection is equivalent to the UVB protection. Which is the best, and the best is what you deserve.
Chemical vs. physical sunscreen
There are two main types of protection from harmful UV rays: chemical, and physical. Chemical sunscreens work by absorbing UV rays and basically neutering them via a chemical reaction that turns the UV into heat, which is released from the skin. Physical sunscreens are composed of active mineral ingredients that work by sitting on top of the skin and physically deflecting the rays of the sun.
Because physical sunscreens need to create a physical layer on the skin, more product is usually required. The molecules need to be tightly packed in order to deflect those harmful UVA/UVB rays. And because physical sunscreens are made from active mineral ingredients, they typically have a thicker texture, and a white cast to them, unless they are made with nanoparticles.
Nearly all makeup artists I’ve encountered prefer chemical sunscreens (if they use sunscreen at all) because they tend to be thinner, absorb more easily, less is required to be effective, no risk of the white cast, and consequently are less likely to negatively interfere with a makeup application. However, there are some new questions about whether or not avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene, and ecamsule, are absorbed into the blood stream, and if there are associated health risks if they do. The clinical study that these questions are based on was a small sample size examined over 1 month in 2018, and although they did find that those chemicals were absorbed into the blood stream, they stated explicitly that the findings did not indicate that individuals should avoid chemical sunscreens, and that more research should be done.
How much sunscreen is enough sunscreen, and how often should I reapply?
You need to be using so much more sunscreen than you ever imagined: an entire ounce for your body, and a quarter sized amount for your face. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, most people use less than half of the recommended amount. So imagine however much you used last time you greased up, and double it. And then probably double it again. I mean, think about the last time you put on your moisturizer. You probably used a dime or nickel sized amount, and that’s of a product that your skin readily absorbs. The AAD recommends using a quarter sized amount. Of sunscreen. On your face. That is a lot of product to use, even when the product is concentrated and there are no other jobs being done by that one product.
You also need to be applying your sunscreen so much more frequently than you currently are. The standard belief amongst derm’s and estheticians and people who want you to feel young and stay healthy forever, is that no sunscreen on earth will maintain its original potency after two hours. Especially if you’re sweating heavily, moving around, getting wet. Sunscreen needs to be reapplied in the intervals dictated on the bottle, so usually every 80 minutes.
Okay, but why can’t I rely on the SPF in my foundation /moisturizer?
Imagine that quarter sized dollop of sunscreen. Thick, undiluted. Pure protection against the harmful UVA and UVB rays that want to ruin your beautiful face or cause cancer in your perfect, wonderful, miraculous body. Visualize rubbing it between your palms and massaging it into your face. That shit is good, it works. It’s full of ingredients that are going to protect you from sun cancer, just like the skin of a tomato protects the tender little seeds from drying out and dying off.
Now imagine your foundation. Visualize it in your palms. It’s somewhere on the spectrum between beige and brown. You paid an insane amount of money for it and the girl at Nordstrom told you it had SPF in it so you bought it because who doesn’t want to kill two birds with one stone? I’m so sorry to tell you this, but your foundation is a slice of USDA pizza, and cosmetic companies are trying to tell you that the meager amount of SPF that they sprinkle into a bottle of foundation is enough to protect your skin from UV radiation but it’s not. Think of that quarter sized dollop of sunscreen again. And now think about your foundation. Your foundation is probably like.. what? 10% sunscreen? 90% everything else? The amount of foundation or moisturizer you would have to use in order to reap the same protective benefit as a standard sunscreen would be, like, half the bottle. Plus, you’d need to reapply every 80 minutes. The SPF you walk out of the house wearing at 9am is basically kaput by 5pm. The point of foundation is not to protect you from UV rays. The point of the tomato sauce on pizza is not to nourish your body and provide you with essential vitamins and minerals. The point of tomato sauce on pizza is to provide an acidic, bright, compliment to the sweet, fatty, mozzarella. Pizza sauce doesn’t give a shit about your health, but lobbyists from The American Frozen Food Institute (I fucking wish I was making this up but I’m not) want you to think it does. Foundation doesn’t give a shit about protecting you from sun damage, but really savvy marketing people want you to think it does. That sucks, and it is less than you deserve. You deserve a ripe, juicy tomato, and broad spectrum SPF undiluted by pigment and silicones and emollients.
So what do I do?
First of all, you can keep using that foundation or moisturizer, but be realistic with yourself about how well it’s serving you. Let your sunscreen just be sunscreen. Don’t make it multitask, don’t compromise on the quality of your complexion. Your foundation and your moisturizer will do better jobs, too, if you just let them be themselves! Quit making your beauty products conform to unrealistic expectations!
As a makeup artist, an oily babe, and not-a-doctor, I find powder sunscreens to be the best on days that I’m wearing makeup. The traditional school of thought about sunscreen is that it should be the last step of your skincare routine. So, tone, serum, moisturizer, sunscreen. Then you move on to makeup: primer, foundation, concealer, yadda yadda. However, in my every day life, I like to rely on a mineral powder (so, physical,) sunscreen, and I like to apply it as my very last step of my makeup. Sure, I’ll use a chemical sunscreen and/or a tinted moisturizer with SPF in it. I personally like to layer different SPF products, because I can. I’m not advising this, nor claiming that I get superior protection, but I’m currently in Costa Rica where it hasn’t dropped below 89* for the last three weeks. The benefit of the powder sunscreen is that I can reapply it throughout the day without adding layer on layer of grease.
Product recs:
As I promised earlier, I will never recommend a product I wouldn’t use myself. None of these are affiliate links because I’m not that clever (yet!) but I hope you’ll trust my recommendations regardless. I am writing this post from beautiful, hot, sunburny Tamarindo, Costa Rica, so all of my recommendations are items that I currently have with me.
Sunscreen for the face
Drunk Elephant Umbra Tinte™ Physical Daily Defense SPF 30.
Broad Spectrum, silicone free. Yes please!
They currently only offer one shade which is embarrassing. It’s incredibly sheer and would suit a broad range of skin tones, but not broad enough.
Coola Full Spectrum 360° Sun Silk Drops Organic Face Sunscreen SPF 30
Broad Spectrum protection, includes protection against blue light. I’m not sure I buy into the “blue light is as damaging as UVB” but I’ll hold off on passing judgement until I’ve had the chance to study that further.
Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 40
Broad Spectrum, claims to function as a makeup gripping primer. Also claims to absorb blue light.
This is probably my most loved sunscreen, and it does perform well under makeup. I wouldn’t say that it grips, but I’m not mad at it.
Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral SPF 40
I might be the only person who loves this (it’s rated 3.5 on PTR’s own website, lol) but most of the negative reviews are for the packaging. Which isn’t great. But not enough to turn me off.
Broad Spectrum, powder formula. Can be used as a setting powder, and can be reapplied throughout the day as frequently as necessary. Its actually quite mattifying, which is a godsend for oily people who are usually only made more oily by their sun protection products.
Biggest complaint is that the brush it comes with is a little bit scratchy, and because it’ a brush it can’t be sanitized fully. It’s not something that you could use on a client, but for personal use for those of us with active imaginations who can pretend the “antimicrobial” properties of the brush are 100% effective, it’s perfect.
Sunscreen for the body
I love any and all Sun Bum products.
In Costa Rica I relied heavily on the Original Formula SPF 50 Lotion and the SPF 50 Spray as I developed my base tan. After a few weeks of religious SPF 50 application and avoiding the highest sun, I’ve bumped all the way down to the Original Formula SPF 15 Spray.
Broad Spectrum UVA / UVB Protection, Oxybenzone Free, Cruelty Free, Oil Free, Paraben Free, PABA Free, Fragrance Free, Petroleum Free, Water Resistant (80 Minutes) & Sweat Resistant.
I also use the SPF 15 tanning oil, which is broad spectrum and has marula, argan, and avocado oil in it.
Hypoallergenic, Reef Friendly / Oxybenzone Free & Octinoxate Free, Cruelty Free, Vegan, Gluten Free
Okay, my friends, that’s all I’ve got for you tonight. Please let me know if I missed anything or if I can delve any deeper. There are a ton of amazing products on the market, but here are some of my favorites. I hope tomorrow morning you wake up ready to carpe the diem, and cop some new SPF.