Hearing the term ‘natural sunscreen’ probably makes you want to cringe up into a ball. There’s a big myth that all natural sunscreens are thick, greasy, and cast a particularly attractive white ghost sheen across your face. Makeup won’t go over the top, you feel like your skin is trapped under a layer of oil, and the whole experience is the worst ever.
However, there are benefits to natural sunscreens that just can’t be ignored, esp if you have sensitive skin (like me). Where “chemical” sunscreens sink into the skin and scatter or absorb, then transform, UV rays – natural ones are usually made with zinc or titanium oxide – ingredients that literally repel UV rays. (Unlike titanium oxide, zinc oxide does not risk the creation of free radicals.)
This means that zinc oxide is not doing stuff within your skin layer, and therefore not disturbing it – something that can really irritate the hell out of it if you’re dealing with sensitivity.
To see if all this rumour stuff was legit or not, we tried a natural sunscreen for a week at work on some reeeeally hot days.
WHAT I TRIED
IT WASN’T GREASY LIKE I THOUGHT IT’D BE
I’ll be honest, it’s been a long time since I tried out a natural sunscreen. I’ve found them far too greasy for my skin in summer in the past. Who wants to add grease to their face when the humidity already does that for you? So I was expecting this guy to be slick as a dodgy tuckshop burger. But it really wasn’t at all. Like, not at ALL. I will say my skin type is more dry than oily, so I can handle a little richness when it comes to what goes on my face. I would say for my skin, this wasn’t greasy. But maybe if you had oily skin you might find it a lil’ heavy.
IT SAT WELL UNDER MAKEUP
This was a huge one for me. I wear makeup daily, and therefore any sunscreen product needs to sit well underneath it. This means anything too thick is out of the question. Natural sunscreens in the past have always been notoriously thick – hard to apply, and hard to layer underneath makeup. I wouldn’t say this one felt sheer per se. But it definitely was light enough on my skin to blend and not interfere with my foundation.
Through the day I didn’t find it moved my makeup around. I’ve definitely found that unless I used a chemical sunscreen (which are thinner in consistency), my makeup would shift or “melt off” through the day because the natural sunscreen was too slippery or whatever. But I didn’t have that issue with this one, and that’s probably been the biggest benefit. And for my makeup not to move around on a hot day with natural sunscreen, that’s pretty major. (FYI, they’ve also got a Tinted Sunscreen if you like your SPF to double as low-key makeup).
IT WASN’T THICK AND GLUGGY
Oh, god. My biggest gripe with having to do this story was how thick I remembered natural sunscreens to be. I found they dragged over my skin and were almost impossible to blend. Not to mention they made you feel like your skin couldn’t breathe when it was humid. Again, I didn’t find this with Little Urchin. It wasn’t liquid-thin by any means. But it didn’t have that waxy feel to it that others do. I didn’t ‘notice’ it all day, is I guess what I’m saying – you know when you wear foundation or sunscreen that’s too thick, and you can feel it on your face all day? I didn’t have that.
ABSOLUTELY NO WHITE GHOST LOOK
Another biggie – this sunscreen didn’t give me ghost-face. That’s what many natural sunscreens do, give you a weird white sheen across your face. It makes them not ideal for beach days or any time you don’t want to add makeup on top.
I didn’t find this with Little Urchin, and I have no idea how they’ve avoided it tbqh. But it goes on white and blends invisible.
VERDICT?
Look, for me – this was an amazing sunscreen. I’m a big convert to natural now. Primarily this is because I have always wanted to be into natural sunscreens, but the formulas just didn’t work for me on a day-to-day basis. Now that natural sunscreens seem to have evolved and aren’t the thick, unblendable bastards they used to be, I can finally avoid the irritation I was getting from chemical sunscreens.
That being said you’ll never get the sheer levels of a chemical sunscreen from a natural one. It’s really down to the fact that the natural ingredients used to block UV rays HAVE to have some level of thickness because they’re designed to sit on top of your skin, not sink in.
Basically, if you’ve avoided daily sunscreen because you find it irritates your skin, this is absolutely something you should give a shot.
And speaking of giving it a shot, we’re running a competition to win a whole year’s worth of Little Urchin products. Not too shabby, right? If you’re interested, enter below.
