After my success with Josie Maran, I turned my attention to one I hadn't heard anything about, Lancôme Bienfait Multi-Vital SPF 30 Cream. Fast-absorbing, lightweight, but even the sample packaging is insanely bulky, so I decided not to find out if the increased blemishes were a fluke or not and instead testdrive one with sleeker packaging. And so, let me tell you about Shiseido's Ultimate Sun Protection Cream+ Broad Spectrum SPF 50+! Herewith called "this sunscreen", because that name is just absurd.
This is a sunscreen superficially like ones you experienced as a child (or at least, like ones I experienced––my mother was very devoted to keeping me sunburn-free). It's thick, it smells like sunscreen, and it turns even my pasty skin noticeably white. However. However. Give it a couple minutes, and it dries down to a nice satin finish, and even better: it's awesome under makeup. I wore it at the beach this week and just topped it with concealer, because who cares how you look at the beach, and I was amazed to find that it was the perfect base for spreading concealer, moist and blendable, and I needed to use a third less than I expected to and the resulting coverage was about equivalent to that I get from foundation. I tried it again yesterday, but let the sunscreen dry down longer, and it didn't work nearly as well, so let that be a lesson to you: this is the one case where it's better to not have time between the layers.
Um, what else. It doesn't seem to break me out, hurray! And it doesn't particularly increase my oiliness, which is good. It also doesn't play particularly well with my dry patches, which is strange, as this is the formula designed for normal-to-dry skin. I'd like to try the lotion version to compare, but I like this stuff regardless! Not as much as Josie Maran's, which is lighter-weight and lacks the chemical sunscreens present in this, but still. It's good stuff.
Verdict: It's coming with me to Turkey! That's a seal of approval, indeed. $35 for 2.1 oz, available from Sephora and department stores
Have you tried any of Shiseido's sunscreens? What did you think?
via Sephora
This is a sunscreen superficially like ones you experienced as a child (or at least, like ones I experienced––my mother was very devoted to keeping me sunburn-free). It's thick, it smells like sunscreen, and it turns even my pasty skin noticeably white. However. However. Give it a couple minutes, and it dries down to a nice satin finish, and even better: it's awesome under makeup. I wore it at the beach this week and just topped it with concealer, because who cares how you look at the beach, and I was amazed to find that it was the perfect base for spreading concealer, moist and blendable, and I needed to use a third less than I expected to and the resulting coverage was about equivalent to that I get from foundation. I tried it again yesterday, but let the sunscreen dry down longer, and it didn't work nearly as well, so let that be a lesson to you: this is the one case where it's better to not have time between the layers.
Um, what else. It doesn't seem to break me out, hurray! And it doesn't particularly increase my oiliness, which is good. It also doesn't play particularly well with my dry patches, which is strange, as this is the formula designed for normal-to-dry skin. I'd like to try the lotion version to compare, but I like this stuff regardless! Not as much as Josie Maran's, which is lighter-weight and lacks the chemical sunscreens present in this, but still. It's good stuff.
Verdict: It's coming with me to Turkey! That's a seal of approval, indeed. $35 for 2.1 oz, available from Sephora and department stores
Have you tried any of Shiseido's sunscreens? What did you think?
