Why your moisturiser should not have an SPF

We get asked this question a lot. Have you been diligently applying your moisturiser with SPF every morning? It might be time to re-think your beauty routine.

Moisturisers with an SPF are definitely more convenient and economical but there is a downside.

Moisturiser and sunscreen work differently to each other. A moisturiser needs to soak into the skin to give full benefit. Having a sunscreen mixed in decreases the moisturiser’s ability to soak in and provide the skin with all its goodness.

There’s 2 general categories of sunscreen – chemical barriers and physical barriers. Chemical barriers cause a protective chemical reaction when they contact the skin, whereas a physical barrier sits on top of the skin.

Whichever type of sunscreen you choose, a moisturiser gets in the way and doesn’t let it do its job properly. Using a separate moisturiser and sunscreen is the best option to get the full benefits of each.

A chemical barrier sunscreen should be applied before moisturiser and physical barrier sunscreen after.

Dermatologists and consumer watchdog Choice also agree that a combined moisturiser/sunscreen is not good enough. This is because people usually don’t apply enough in the morning, and then forget to reapply during the day.

If you are after a nourishing moisturiser without an SPF then the Perfectly Happy Light Anti-Oxidant Cream is a great choice. For now we will let other skin care companies tackle the problem of creating an organic, light weight, non-tinted, zinc based SPF 30 daily sunscreen (not an easy task – we have yet to come across one that we love).

We still have some Perfectly Happy Light Anti-Oxidant Cream in stock so if you need some more click here.

This article will probably raise some questions so feel free to ask away in the comments section below. If you learned something by reading this, please click like