A market that isn’t interested in achieving and maintaining fair skin isn’t a market that motivates much sunscreen R&D. Drugstores here sell self-tanning lotions not whitening creams tanning salons remain popular. Stateside, on the other hand, mainstream beauty standards are much less focused on skin, and fair skin isn’t preferred at all. Development of most technologies is driven by the market’s perceived need for them, and East Asia’s deeply ingrained, near-universal preference for fair skin drives the continued R&D of stronger, better sunscreens. In my opinion, Asian sunscreens are far more advanced than US sunscreens. That is, unless we turn to Asian sunscreens! It looks like we’re stuck with crappy US sunscreen formulations for now. US-based sunscreen lovers got their hopes up last summer, when Congress approved a bill that mandated faster FDA review of sunscreen ingredients, but that hope faded when the FDA refused to approve all eight sunscreen ingredients submitted for its review earlier this year due to ingredients not meeting FDA clinical trial requirements. It thus falls under the governance of the FDA, which is notoriously slow at approving new sunscreen ingredients, such as the ones the Japanese and Korean skin care industries use. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the US sunscreen situation will improve much in the short term. These flaws make the typical US drugstore sunscreen too unpleasant for anyone but the most dedicated skin care addicts to use on a daily basis, let alone in the amounts required to get the advertised protection. I know I didn’t get diligent about my sunscreen until I started using Japanese products. And they often have that distinctive sunscreen smell. If applied in the recommended amount of 1/4 tsp for face, US drugstore sunscreens (I’m looking right at you, Neutrogena Ultra “Sheer” (heh) “Dry” (hah) Touch Sunscreen) tend to be thick and heavy, with an oily residue that never fully dries and a bright white cast that will turn even the tannest of reformed tanners into Casper the Greasy Ghost. If you’ve tried a few, you know exactly what I mean. To put it bluntly, the vast majority of affordable, easily accessible US sunscreens suck. Unfortunately for those of us in the US, that’s easier said than done. In short, you must protect your skin from the sun. If you want to give your other anti-aging actives a chance to work on your existing fine lines, you must protect your skin from the sun. If you want to prevent future wrinkles, you must protect your skin from the sun. UVA radiation in particular is responsible for much visible skin aging and penetrates both cloud cover and glass. UV radiation breaks down your skin’s natural collagen scaffolding and damages skin at a cellular level, leading to photoaging, sun spots, and in some cases, even cancer. Why is sunscreen important?Īs most people know by now, sunscreen is vital to any anti-aging skin care regimen. I’ve waited for you for far too long.īefore we dive into what is obviously going to be a rave review, let’s take a minute to talk sunscreen. I hadn’t been expecting it to arrive from Japan for at least another week, so when I got the package yesterday, I screamed! Oh my loves. Okay, not really, because marrying a bottle of sunscreen is weird, but that’s how much I love the 2015 reformulation of the already popular Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence sunscreen. And when we leave this world behind for the great snail farm in the sky, we’ll spend eternity watching over our fellow skin care fanatics, like anti-aging guardian angels. I will provide the money, and Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence will provide the UV protection. We will spend our lives supporting each other in a mature but passionate partnership of equals. We will make our lifelong commit to each other official on a sunny beach (while wearing adequate sun protection, of course). The new 2015 Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence sunscreen and I plan to elope soon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |