What’s the biggest secret to keep­ing your skin look­ing like a baby’s until you’re 110 years old?

Pro­tect your skin from the sun. Sim­ple as that.

The sun has its ben­e­fits (e.g. essen­tial Vit­a­min D pro­duc­tion), and sunny days make us happy and want to go on pic­nics, but the truth is that if you spend time in the sun with­out ade­quate pro­tec­tion, your skin will get dam­aged and you will age faster.

I went through a phase for about a year where I thought every­thing that was nat­ural was good for me. The Sun? Ha! I thought, hey, if I’m eat­ing healthy and not spend­ing all day in it, it won’t dam­age my skin! Oh, I was wrong. Thank­fully I snapped out of it (two sun­burns and sev­eral new freck­les later…), and started get­ting seri­ous about sun pro­tec­tion again. My other grand­mother, who is 83 and Russ­ian, has not a sin­gle sun spot (a.k.a. age spot) on her skin. It is smooth, milky white, non-leathery, and soft like a baby. When you ask her the secret to her skin, she says point-blank, “I never went in the sun.” Of course, she did at times, but she always wore a hat and sun­block (the old white chalky kind).

So to pre­vent your skin from aging pre­ma­turely, you need to…

1. Stay out of the sun for pro­longed peri­ods of time
2. Wear a hat and pro­tec­tive cloth­ing, and
3. Wear sun­block — but not just any old sun­block! We know that chem­i­cal sun­screens con­tain­ing ingre­di­ents like 4-Methyl-Benzylidencamphor, Oxy­ben­zone, Benzophenone-3, Octyl-methoyl-cinnamates, Octyl-Dimethyl-Para-Amino-Benzoic Acid (PABA), and Homos­alate are harm­ful to our skin. Switzerland’s Insti­tute of Phar­ma­col­ogy and Tox­i­col­ogy has done mul­ti­ple stud­ies show­ing that chem­i­cal sun­screens have harm­ful con­se­quences that can cause hor­monal changes (i.e. they mimic estro­gen) and iron­i­cally, are unsta­ble in sun­light and can be a fac­tor in the onset of skin cancer.

To avoid those issues, just go with a nat­ural phys­i­cal sun­block that con­tains zinc oxide and tita­nium diox­ide. Phys­i­cal sun­blocks may leave a whitish film on your skin which dis­si­pates over time, but this depends on the con­cen­tra­tion of zinc and tita­nium used, and if the par­ti­cles are micronized or not. There is some debate of micronized and nano par­ti­cles and whether they are harm­ful or not. Nor­mally, zinc oxide and tita­nium diox­ide sit on top of the skin and are too large to be absorbed by the skin. How­ever, when they are made into nano par­ti­cles (this ensures you don’t get that whitish film on your skin), there is debate over whether the par­ti­cles can now be absorbed and pos­si­bly pose a tox­i­c­ity threat. For clar­i­fi­ca­tion, a nanopar­ti­cle is between 1 and 100nm, and a micronized par­ti­cle has an aver­age size greater than 100nm. Sev­eral of the nat­ural sun­blocks I have tried and rec­om­mend below con­tain micronized par­ti­cles, and only a small per­cent­age of those par­ti­cles may con­tain nano par­ti­cles. Nano par­ti­cles of zinc and tita­nium have not shown any proof of caus­ing harm, and any tox­i­c­ity issues would have to result from an extremely high does of these min­er­als that you won’t get from using a dol­lop of sun­block every day. I am not super con­cerned, and I would rather use these prod­ucts than any syn­thetic chem­i­cal sun­block that I know will cause me harm and con­tribute to skin cancer.

After care­ful review of the ingre­di­ents in each prod­uct, I have selected the best nat­ural sun­blocks I could find on the market:

Marie Veronique Organ­ics Mois­tur­iz­ing Face Screen Plus, SPF 30, $40
This is a really nice sun­block with mois­tur­iz­ing and anti-aging prop­er­ties, in addi­tion to pro­tect­ing you from UVA & UVB rays. They offer No Tint, Light Tint, and Medium Tint, which is a great option for those who want to even out their com­plex­ion and get sun pro­tec­tion in one prod­uct. I was sent the Light Tint, and while the color was too dark for my skin, I loved every­thing else about it and would pur­chase it in the No Tint ver­sion. It goes on smooth and liquid-y (the con­sis­tency was great, not too liq­uid), absorbs very well, and leaves a nice velvety/matte fin­ish. The smell is very herbal — sort of lemony and flo­ral. It’s quite strong at first and fades nicely, and I found it pleas­ant. The ingre­di­ents are non-irritating and non-comedogenic (i.e. won’t clog pores) At $40 for 2 ounces, the price might seem steep, but once you real­ize that it’s an anti-aging/tinted moisturizer/sunblock all in one, I think you’ll find that it’s worth it. I’ve given this to my mom since she has darker skin than me and the Light Tint is per­fect for her.

Mex­i­tan SPF 50 Sun­screen Lotion, $19.95
I’m going to say this because it’s true and because it hap­pens to rhyme: I’m a big fan of Mex­i­tan. It has a very light, pleas­ant scent, not that typ­i­cal over­pow­er­ing sun­screen smell. The prod­uct has a great con­sis­tency (dries rather quickly though, so spread it fast) and leaves a slight whitish cast. Per­son­ally, I really liked the bit of white tint it left so I could tell where I put it, but the cast dimin­ishes in about 20–30 min­utes and you’re left with a smooth, moist fin­ish that is slightly dewy. It didn’t feel heavy and while it was quite water resis­tant, it was easy to wash off my palms with some basic castile soap and water. If you have super dry skin like me, you will def­i­nitely have to mois­tur­ize once or twice before using this prod­uct because the con­cen­tra­tion of zinc oxide and tita­nium diox­ide is quite strong (SPF 50, yay!) and can be dry­ing. I used the SPF 50 for over a week and it didn’t clog my pores. I plan to use the SPF 50 if I’m ever going to be in direct sun­light for a while since I found it too dry­ing for every­day use on my win­ter skin. In sum­mer, I think the SPF 50 will be per­fect for daily use on my skin since my skin is not dry in the sum­mer. At $19.95 for almost 6 ounces, this is very cost-effective.

Mex­i­tan SPF 30 Sun­screen Lotion, $16.95
This has iden­ti­cal ingre­di­ents to the SPF 50, except a lower con­cen­tra­tion of sun­block since this is SPF 30. This was very easy to spread with a super sub­tle white film that goes away in 5–10 min­utes, and you’re left with smooth, mois­tur­ized skin. It’s not heavy at all and didn’t dry my skin out. I love every­thing about this sun­block, includ­ing the fact that it has green tea in it, which is an excel­lent anti-oxidant and over­all a great ingre­di­ent for the skin. At $16.95 for 8 ounces, this is a good price, espe­cially if you’re going to use this on your face and body.

Bad­ger SPF 30 Sun­screen, $15.95
I tried the reg­u­lar SPF 30 which has a nice scent, but for those who are sen­si­tive to essen­tial oils or don’t want a scent at all, they do have an unscented ver­sion. This sun­block has a very creamy con­sis­tency and leaves a more per­ma­nent whitish film until you wash it off. I would use this on my body if I were going swim­ming, since it was the most water resis­tant of the bunch because it con­tains beeswax. Some peo­ple may find beeswax pore-clogging, and for me it does cause bumps. When my guinea pigs (a.k.a. friends and fam­ily) tried this, they expe­ri­enced no pore clog­ging effects, how­ever. It was hard to wash off, even with soap and water, which could be a pro or con depend­ing on your needs. This would be good for a very active per­son who is doing water sports or sweat­ing a lot. At $15.95 for 3 ounces, it’s quite expensive.

Sun­blocks I have not tried but have amaz­ing and nat­ural ingredients:

BurnOut Eco-Sensitive Zinc Oxide Sun­screen SPF 32, $16

Kabana Skin Care Green Screen® Organic SPF 20 Sun­screen, $6 — $31

Kora Tinted Day Care Cream, $59 (Aus­tralian Dollars)

Enjoy and here’s to young skin for­ever!
~Stephanie xx

Related Posts:

• Skin Care Rou­tine as of August 2010
• What’s In My Cupboard?
• Review: Real Purity Skin Care & Cosmetics