Facial Sunscreen - La Roche-Posay Anthelios XL

Sunday, March 30, 2014

With the sun shining brighter and hotter the last couple of weeks I felt I had to start thinking about changing my skin care routine and incorporate some SPFs in there.

Especially when it comes to sun screens for the face I have huge trouble finding ones that are right for my skin type and don't break me out. My skin type is something I would describe as "oily combination skin" and my skin is also rather blemish prone so the thought of putting sun screen on my face is more than daunting to me!

Of course when I buy BB creams or foundations I make sure they have SPF in them but you just don't get enough protection against UVA and UVB rays from them as you need (especially in the hotter summer months). So you should never just leave it at that!

I use the L'Oréal Paris le teint Perfect match (SPF 17) or the Garnier Miracle skin perfector BB cream (SPF 15)

Now I've been searching high and low for a facial sun screen that doesn't leave my skin looking greasy. And I've finally found the perfect match for me! It's the La Roche-Posay Anthelios XL dry touch gel-cream. It's SPF 50 (which is the highest SPF you can commonly get in drugstores here in Germany) and it protects the skin against both UVB and UVA rays. I tried to find out what the different sun rays do to your skin and here's what I got out of the internet: UVB rays only affect the upper layers of the skin, they are the reason our skin goes tan in the sun, or bright red if we overdo it.
UVA rays on the other hand go way deeper into our skin and are said to be the cause of skin cancer and also make your skin go wrinkly (it's called photoageing). In a sunbed your skin will be exposed to only UVA rays.

I definitely don't want a wrinkled face anytime soon (never even?) and that's why it was so important to me to find the right facial sunscreen. I've found that Anthelios XL does exactly what it says on the packaging: it takes away shine from my skin and sinks in immediately without leaving a white shine to my face (lots of other SPFs I tried do that). I also haven't noticed any break outs related to using this product so I couldn't ask for more really!