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Today’s blog post is brought to you by a chance interaction between me and one of my current coworkers, Nya. My current post at work has me literally sitting front and slightly off-center with the only window in a small room, so I made it a point to occasionally reapply sunscreen to make sure I don’t get skin cancer (disclosure: I have family members who died from cancers of a different type – confirmed ovarian for one and possibly the same for the second death).

While browsing the tower displays of my local Ulta, this lil’ guy caught my eye:

I was drawn to the product because one of my early non-drugstore sunscreen purchases was Shiseido’s Urban Environment Oil-Free UV Protector. I am Combination Oily and I did not need my sunscreen to make me look like a moving oil slick. And I live in the boroughs. My wee self always had the impression that Japanese products were far better than what was sold in the west, so I went ahead and picked it up during a Sephora run.

What made me purchase this rather expensive sunscreen stick, when there are better options to choose from nowadays? Well, I had a Shiseido product once and I was fairly happy with it, so Shiseido was a brand I have a fondness for. Not to mention it was a Clear Sunscreen stick, which is different than what some sunscreen sticks nowadays have (I simply cannot buy into the concept of tinted sunscreen, purely because it is stupidly hard to find a shade that matches my summer complexion). There are claims that the SPF is “high tech” and that its protectiveness becomes stronger when heat, water, or perspiration is detected (having been exposed to years of claims on beauty products, I take them with a grain of salt. Especially with this – it just sounds so hyperbolic), but I just let that whiz past my head. I was fixated on the fact that I can finally get another Shiseido product.

True to its word, it is very much a clear stick (there’s a small tintness to it so it doesn’t reach water-clear levels) and application is easy, which hit the appeal spots for me.

So to date myself, when I bought the Shiseido sunscreen, it was still in its white bottle with gray text. Yeah, I’m old. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But now it’s got more added benefits to it. At the time, my lack of knowledge with sunscreens was limited, so I was unaware that it left a noticeable white cast and worse, when flash photography is used, there is flashback.

So I ended up switching to La Roche-Posay’s Anthelios Melt-In Milk Sunscreen SPF 60, because it did not leave a white cast after application and the SPF # was higher than Shiseido’s. So I stuck with it for a while and the reviews raving about its lack of a white cast certainly proved to be true. Until I started working jobs that required me to commute and all of a sudden, it did not seem practical to carry the rather large tube of La Roche-Posay with me.

Fast-forward to today. Towards the end of my shift, I remembered to re-apply my Shiseido Clear Sunscreen Stick to prepare for the long bake-in-my-car-on-my-way-home process, and my coworker Nya noticed me applying the sunscreen stick downwards. She corrected me by saying that I was supposed to apply the stick by moving upwards. She must have seen me undergo a Hoss Delgado moment, as she mentioned that she was planning to be a Dermatologist.

I got flustered and mentioned that I was pulling down because I was following the adage of shaving – you shave in the direction of how your facial hair grew (which I have), and Nya explained that doing so causes the skin to pull down. She also took notice that I was using Shiseido and recommended a better sunscreen for a lot less.

Before I could engage in further chatter, calls came in so they had to be resolved. Once we got a bit of reprieve from them, I asked Nya about the sunscreen she recommended and why she ended up switching to Computer Science (which she majored in).

That’s when I learned about the abib Quick Sunstick Bar. She sent me a link to find the product, as I had planned to search for it on my own via Google and discovered it was on Amazon. Nya pointed out that the shape of the stick was better than Shiseido’s, since it was curved and that she switched to Computer Science, as the major was a hobby of hers until it stopped being fun. She also remarked that my Shiseido sunscreen stick is nice but overpriced for what it tries to do. However, I am wary of purchasing beauty products from Amazon because of the ridiculous amount of fake products that are accessible to buy through the site.

So I thought of buying directly from the brand. Only to find out they charge nearly twice as much as the Amazon price.

I did tell Nya that I will consider the product due to its affordability and her recommendation, but for now, I have a stick of Shiseido that I intend to turn into my next Empty (which I did, unexpectedly, but that’s a story for another day).

And that’s the tale of two sunscreens. What about you, Beautiful Blossoms? What sunscreen is your go-to, and have you thought of ways to apply it without needing to wash your hands afterwards?

Take care and stay blooming,

– Blossy 🌺