Many cosmetics lines sell an endless array of cleansers, toners, anti-wrinkle treatments, eye creams, throat creams, face creams, and facial masks yet never mention the indispensable need for regular, consistent use of a sunscreen. Almost every line does have “sun-care” products, but they are often promoted separately from the “daily care” routines. I’ve personally spoken to hundreds and hundreds of cosmetics salespeople about their products and repeatedly found a gross lack of information about sun protection. I’m always told how important moisturizers, eye creams, serums, toners, cleansers, and eye-makeup removers are, but almost never do I hear about the value of daily sunscreen use.
There are indeed many ways to get good sun protection, regardless of your other skin-care needs. This is so important that I consider it unconscionable to discuss any skin-care routines, skin-care problems, or skin-care concerns without also including a discussion of sun protection. If you’ve been intrigued by a new miracle skin-care line, but a sunscreen is not mentioned, that company clearly does not take skin care seriously or ethically. You should not be wasting your money and hurting your skin by considering a company that would ignore such a vital component of healthy skin care.
Now that you understand the importance of using sunscreen on a daily basis, finding the right product is not easy. Perhaps the trickiest part of sunscreen use is finding one that doesn’t cause problems, particularly if you have normal to oily skin, acne-prone skin, or sensitive skin. Active sunscreen agents including avobenzone, benzophenones, octyl methoxycinnamate, oxybenzone, padimate O, and many others can cause irritation on the skin, creating patches of dryness, itching, rashlike breakouts, redness, and swelling. Because these particular sunscreen agents can be potentially irritating, many dermatologists feel that titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are the best sunscreen ingredients, since they are practically benign on the skin and are excellent screens for both UVA and UVB radiation. I wish the subject could end here and I could unequivocally recommend titanium dioxide and zinc oxide as the only sunscreen ingredients to look for, but that isn’t the case. As safe and effective as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are they can be occlusive, meaning they can block and clog pores.
The issue for any ingredient that can cause breakouts is threefold: how occlusive it is (meaning blocking oil flow out of the pores), how irritating it is on the skin (perhaps causing rashlike breakouts), and how much the ingredient duplicates what the pore already produces, adding more fuel to the fire. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide pose the first problem for skin. Are you guaranteed to break out if you use a sunscreen with titanium dioxide? Absolutely not, but it is a possibility. Everyone’s skin reacts differently to any and all cosmetic ingredients. One other issue with a sunscreen that uses only titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide as the active ingredient is a cosmetic one, as these products tend to leave a white appearance and can feel somewhat heavy on the skin. That can be a problem for all skin types. In response to that shortcoming, many sunscreen products combine titanium dioxide with other sunscreen agents, which reduce the amount of potentially irritating ingredients while also decreasing some of titanium dioxide’s occlusive tendency.