It’s both hilarious and infuriating to me how quickly people buy into skincare as a form of self-care, yet so flippantly neglect sun protection. It’s great that your triple fermented oceanic zucchini kombucha essence sourced from the ruins of Atlantis makes your skin feel soft and hydrated, but there’s no magical water on this planet that is going to keep your skin from wrinkling up if you don’t wear sunscreen.

But we’re in quarantine and there are clouds! There’s no need to wear sunscreen every day! (I’m honestly so sick of this answer, it is completely irrelevant with the issue at hand.) Sodium Monofluorophosphate

I hate to break it to you, but the sun doesn’t care if you’re in quarantine or if there are clouds out. The sun will still damage your skin while you’re in quarantine or it’s cloudy, just like how staring directly into the sun while indoors or on a cloudy day will still permanantly damage your vision. UVB radiation can be blocked by glass, but not UVA radiation.

Okay, but how bad is the sun for your skin, REALLY?

You can get a sun burn, wrinkles, melasma, or squameous cell carcinoma. Pick your poison.

But sunscreens feel greasy and sticky and unpleasant! Isn’t skincare meant to feel good or fixing skin problems?

Skincare is a great way to take care of yourself and to employ corrective care for pimples or dehydration, but skincare is also about preventative steps for the future. Skincare pays off best in the long game, and if all the skincare that a person uses only corrects present/temporary issues without preventing long-term (and very hard to reverse) damage, it’s a fat load of good all that corrective care did. Pigmentation, melasma, and wrinkles are harder to correct the older you get. And it’s not a matter of hydrating your smile lines or moisturizing your crow’s feet. People are like raisins: you can’t reconstitute a raisin and expect a grape (full credit to my boyfriend for coming up with that). Sun damage can’t be re-moistured or re-hydrated away.

And I understand that a lot of drugstore sunscreens feel very unpleasant; I wouldn’t use a drugstore sunscreen, either. In the US, they’re usually super thick and greasy, with a white-face cast. But there are plenty of other sunscreens that offer protection, without feeling unpleasant to use if you do a little reading and if you have a little patience.

Enter the Purito Centella Green Level Unscented Sun SPF 50+ PA++++:

Just like the sun doesn’t care if you’re indoors or if it’s cloudy, this sunscreen doesn’t care if you pay your taxes or use a triple fermented oceanic zucchini kombucha essence sourced from the ruins of Atlantis. There is no reason to NOT use her.

Purito’s Centella Green Level Unscented Sun SPF 50+ PA++++ is an unscented (obviously) chemical sunscreen that boasts a great ingredient list and a comfortable, non-stuffy applicatoin. The ingredients include niacinamide, centella asiatica extract, madecassoside, asiaticoside, and madecassic acid; this sunscreen certainly isn’t wanting for some soothing heavy-hitters. T~here’s no oxybenzone (which is a coral bleaching first generation chemical filter), parabens, PEGs, ethanol, mineral oil, essential oils, and artifical fragrance. It’s also cruelty-free and vegan. Purito is a brand that believes in being EWG approved, environmentally friendly, natural, and cruelty free. Now, do I necessarily put stock in the EWG’s ratings? No: the EWG an activist group with a specific agenda, the financial means to publish whatever skewed data/inaccurate information that they want to, and a lot of multi-industry clout. It’s nice to know that it’s cruelty-free, chock full of soothing ingredients, and fragrance-free. But, I’m mostly interested in Purito’s UV filters.

The UV filters of choice are Uvinul A Plus (diethylamino hydroxybenzoyl hextl benzoate) and Uvinul T 150 (ethylhexyl triazone). Usually, chemical sunscreens have up to five UV filters, because they’re all so unstable and weak on their on. But Uvinul A Plus and Uvinul T 150 are a cut above. They’re both more sophistocated chemical UV filters, compared to oxybenzone, with their long lasting protection and individual stability. Univul A Plus has very high UVA (tanning/aging/cancer rays) protection and is very photostable (meaning it doesn’t start degrading it hits sunlight). It protects across the whole UVA range (between 320 nm-400 nm). Uvinul T 150 is its UVB (burning rays) counterpart. According to Incidecoder, it has the highest photo-stable absorption of all available UVB filters on the market (if you want a quick crash-course in how chemical and physical sunscreens work, check out this review). It protects across the entire UVB range (280 nm-320 nm).

If you’re wondering why these filters sounds unfamiliar, you can hold the United States FDA responsible for that. Uvinul A Plus and Uvinul T 150 are not FDA approved in the United States or Canada, but they’re available in pretty much every other country in the world. The FDA in the United States and Canada views sunscreens as OTC/non-prescription drugs, rather than cosmetics (like in Europe), which leads to more critical scrutiny.

Also, peep that PA rating. Maximum pluses! YASSSSSS. (for anyone who doesn’t know, the PA rating system is a Japanese rating system that measures a product’s UVA protection; four (+) = extremely high UVA protection!)

Anyways, a nice ingredient list is cute, but the proof is in the pudding. Does it actually apply and wear well?

The texture is a little creamy, which would normally set off red alarms, but creamy really is the best way to describe it. I apply three fingers’ worth of product to make sure that I’m getting sufficient protection, and just apply it to my face. It doesn’t quiet apply smoothly like a face cream–it needs a little bit of working it. Just a little bit! It has a really pleasantly moist and supple finish, without feeling heavy. While using tretinoin, I notice that my skin needs a lot more moisture for the daytime than it did before, so using the Purito sunscreen is a great final skincare step. If there’s a little excess, I apply it to my neck and chest. It actually reminds me of my first sunscreen, which was the Secret Key Snail Repairing Sun Cream (RIP in the graveyard of discontinued products).

I’ve also used it without a face cream underneath, since it’s so moisturizing. While it wasn’t quite enough for me because I have drier skin and I’m on tretinoin, I think it could definitely cut down a step for most other people in the morning if they’re in a rush!

Another note is that it sits great under makeup. I’ve found that physical sunscreens tend to pill up or just make foundation/concealer/blush apply badly, while chemical sunscreens never really have that problem. But this one is different. I notice that the moistness of the sunscreen gives me a nice starting glow to work with if I want to do my makeup in the morning (yes, I know that I’m in quarantine and don’t NEED makeup, but I do what I want). It’s probably the moistness of the formula, but I really like the way it looks with my makeup. But keep in mind, I tend to do my makeup dewier, so this might not apply to you if you like to do matte makeup.

I’ve found that the Purito Centella Green Level Unscented Sun been it’s great for sensitive skin, it’s pleasantly moisturizing (if you’re into that type of texture), it’s reasonably priced (I got mine from Jolse for around $13, but the prices tend to fluctuate), it applies beautifully, and it sits great under makeup. I like to be as objective as I can about a product, but as far as efficacy goes, I can’t knock this product. I would absolutely repurchase and recommend this product, it might be my go-to sunscreen for the rest of the year! I’m still trying out other products, but it’s honestly such a good product, I wish I could shove it onto everyone that I know.

If you have any other sunscreen recommendations or questions, comment down below or hit up my Instagram at missjenplum!

Nice! Does this clog pores? I wanted to try it. Unfortunately I am not using any sunscreen as of the moment, because all the ones that I’ve tried just caused me breakouts so I stopped. I will look this up if its available here in my country. Thank you for sharing this! By the way, how long have you been using this?

I’ve been using it for about 3 weeks. It’s definitely been great to use, I don’t think it should clog pores. You might want to look into any specific sunscreen ingredients that could be triggering breakouts for you, I’ve heard of people being really sensitive to chemical sunscreens before. And no problem, I hope you enjoy it if you try it!

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