Why is sunblock important and why do you need it?

It's been 3 months since my last post. This time, I'm back to talk about something that is everywhere in our everyday lives. UV rays! They are everywhere - the sun, your phone and even your lights. Technical terms aside, know this! Your skin ages with you every single day whether you see it physically or not.

Time for a little story telling.

My mum has always been blessed with good skin. You know, those irritating few that washes their face with nothing but water and yet manages to keep it blemish/ acne/ oil free. Yeah, that’s her! In recent months, she’s noticed some dark spots around her eyes, and when she asked me, I knew her skin wasn’t magic after all.

All her life, she has never has indulged in any of the skincare products or tips that I love. At least not until recently when she realised her skin gets a bit dry in the mornings after she wakes up, and decides to throw on a sleeping pack before she sleeps each night.

So why did the magic disappear? To be honest, I think the magic did it’s best. To begin with, my mum is already in her mid 60s and for her freckles to only start acting out now, with zero maintenance, is already a miracle.

If you’ve got good skin like my mum, you might be thinking sun care doesn’t concern me. Well it does! It just doesn’t concern you now but them freckles will still come and bite you in your ass face no matter how old you are. And if you’re not as blessed with good skin, you know what you need to do. Right?

Since my mum has never really applied anything on her face before, she is very reluctant to start. But knowing now that if she doesn’t do anything, more freckles will just keep appearing. To better help her listen, I looked around and found her a light product that doesn’t require a lot of effort for starters - the Laroche Posay Athelios Sunblock Spray with Anti Gloss.

Photo taken from Laroche Posay Website

I’ve always loved the convenience of sprays as mentioned in many of my previous posts. Previously, I’ve used sprays from another L brand before, but I think I’m little sensitive to some of the ingredients cause my skin tends itch after some time. So imagine my happiness when I found a sunblock spray that is suitable for people with sensitive skin?

Now, all you have to do is to spritz on your face (not exceeding 3s in each spot) before you head out of the house. On rare days that I have make up on, I use this after my makeup has been set. I also have a bottle of this in my office pedestal for me to spray on, if I’m heading out for site visits or for an outdoor lunch. My mum also loves the fact that she doesn’t need to wash her hands, before or after the application. And I strongly recommend this for people that are starting out with suncare and hates hassle.

However, this may be a little tough to bring around when you’re traveling due to the aerosol nature. As I travel quite a lot for work, I always get stopped by the customs officer when they “scanned” something flammable. So I decided that I had to look for something that is small and easy to carry around and I came across the innisfree Sunstick when I was strolling the Shilla Duty Free shop in Changi Airport.

Photo taken from Innisfree world

Slightly wider in width, and transparent in colour

I realised, though, that the innisfree stores in Singapore no longer carry this. There’s also this other option, a tone up sunstick that is also not available in neither Innisfree Singapore nor Shilla. You can only get it from Korea, or the innisfree world website. Its as simple as it looks, for the original sunstick, just draw and colour it on your face as if you’re using a thick marker. For the tone up stick, some hand application is needed to blend it out. So clean your hands!

Photo taken from Innisfree world

Tone up stick is slightly coloured,
so you might need to blend it

My last and final recommendation is my newfound love, the IWLT (i woke up like this) sun cream that’s being distributed by ksisters in Singapore. 

Photo taken from Ksisters Website.
Sun Cream

This is the most “troublesome” product because you have to blend it out, but this is also the most amazing product because it provides an awesome coverage for your skin, auto-correcting and brightening up your face after usage. This range of products are also friendly for pregnant ladies as well as people with sensitive skin (like me). If the pregnant ladies can use it, you know how gentle this is! Using it on its own is sufficient but I realised, using it with either or its 2 buddies (BB cream or Primer) will also provide some sebum control.

Photo taken from Ksisters Website.
BB Cream

Photo taken from Ksisters Website.
Primer

p.s. I noticed that Innisfreeworld will be shutting it services by 21st June 2019.

If you're really looking for items that are not available in innisfree stores singapore, I guess you can go through airfrov for someone to get it back for you. Or, you can go through not so "official channels" like qoo10.