The Best Sunscreen Is the One You’ll Wear
Cream or spray , mineral or chemical, with or without high SPF – there are many characteristics for which you can choose a sunscreen. But what ultimately matters is whether you actually wear it and wear it enough.
If sunscreen makes your face chalky, sticky or oily, you might be tempted to apply it in a thin layer. But SPF on a bottle is what you get when you apply a thick layer – unrealistically thick, to be honest – so the thinner you apply, the less protection you get.
Likewise, if you hate your sunscreen – even because you are annoyed by something insignificant like a smell – you will easily forget to use it as often as you should. Even the best sunscreen won’t help you if you don’t use it.
My husband is one of those people in the habit of thinking that sunscreen doesn’t work. He hated it, applied it thinly, never reapplied it and was prone to severe burns. Once in the pool, I sprayed his back with the same spray I used on our wriggling kids, and at the end of the day, the parts of his body that got splashed were fine, while the areas that didn’t hit were tanned. His takeaway from experience was that the particular brand of spray sunscreen I used is the only sunscreen on earth that actually works.
In a way, it is: he didn’t bother to apply other sunscreens or applied them incorrectly, so they weren’t able to protect him. The sunscreen you wear every day works.