Staying on top of re-applying sunscreen is tough for the average person, it’s gets even more tricky for those wearing makeup!
It’s a balancing act of maintaining your foundation, bronzer, and blush while also achieving an adequate coat of sunscreen to prevent sun damage. A little-known trick is to put your beauty blender to work overtime by delicately adding layers of sunscreen over your makeup!
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How to Apply Liquid Sunscreen Over Makeup
Chemical sunscreens will apply the most seamlessly over makeup without changing the color of your foundation. The Rohto SKIN AQUA UV Super Moisture Gel SPF50 is by far the most cosmetically elegant sunscreen that I have ever used, and it applies beautifully over makeup with a beauty blender!
Lightly dampen your sponge before application, it’s very important that it is not soaked and that you wring out most of the moisture. Excess moisture will dilute the sunscreen and you won’t get the benefit of the full SPF.
Use 1-2 pumps of sunscreen and load the beauty blender. It needs to be fully saturated to ensure full coverage of sunscreen but make sure it’s not dripping or it may break up the makeup during application.
Gently pat the sunscreen all over the face but do not pull or smear as this will impact the makeup underneath.
Cushion sponges like the ones that come in Korean compact foundations are also very handy for applying sunscreen over makeup. You can buy an empty compact to fill with your favorite SPF for less than ten bucks and the sponges also easily fold in half to reach tricky areas like around the nose and eyes.
I experimented with applying liquid sunscreen over makeup with a Real Techniques blender and also the JUNO & Co. Microfiber Velvet Sponge. They both provided very similar results, but I personally prefer the Real Techniques sponge because it’s softer and easier to clean.
How to Use Spray Sunscreen Over Makeup
You can also apply spray sunscreens over makeup by heavily saturating a beauty blender with the spray and then gently patting it into the skin. It can be dangerous to directly spray aerosols onto the face as you can accidentally inhale the product or it can get into the eyes. The beauty blender hack is a great way to take advantage of the quick dry time of most spray sunscreens without risking breathing in the spray.
I’ve had great success using Babyganics Kids Non-Aerosol Sunscreen Spray, SPF 50+ over foundation. It’s fragrance-free, non-greasy, dries fast, water-resistant, broad-spectrum, and doesn’t impact the makeup underneath. It’s currently $9.78 for 6 oz and I found mine at Walmart.
How to Apply Mineral Sunscreen Over Makeup with a Beauty Sponge
Mineral sunscreens can be used over makeup with any makeup sponge but they do tend to leave a white cast. The Banana Boat Simply Protect Kids Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 50 is a fragrance-free and affordable option that can be found at most stores (I bought mine from Walmart).
Watch the video above to see a full demonstration on how I worked the mineral sunscreen into my makeup. It did blend out to an acceptable level but did leave a very slight white cast. I have extremely pale skin, so unless you have the same level of ghosty deameanor as myself, I recommend you try out a chemical formula before reaching for a zinc-based one.
Why Not Just Use a Powder with SPF Over Makeup?
You may be wondering, why go to all the trouble to apply liquid sunscreen over makeup with beauty blenders when you can easily find face powders with SPF? These powders are very tempting and are easy to find in strengths of 30-45 SPF but the protection that you actually get from applying a powder SPF leaves much to be desired!
The Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association published 3 studies on 10,000 women and found that an average application of face powder was .085 grams. As demonstrated in the studies done on ColorScience Powder SPF to achieve the full SPF advertised you would have to use at around 0.24 grams of powder per application.
That’s almost 3 times the average amount of powder that the average makeup wearer uses every day! And then add on top of that, the fact that you’re required to re-apply every two hours. That’s an absolutely insane amount of powder. If you don’t apply that much powder the SPF rating drastically goes down. LabMuffin shared a detailed breakdown of what happens to the SPF rating of powders when you use a normal amount:
“On a 400 cm2 face:
- SPF 50 → SPF 5.5
- SPF 30 → SPF 3.2
- SPF 15 → SPF 1.6″
Applying a powder with SPF is still better than no sun protection at all, but not by much unless you are absolutely caking it on. These powders are also sold in extremely tiny containers. The DERMA E Sun Protection Mineral Powder SPF 30 is a very popular powder that sells for about $4.50 per gram of product.
It’s a good product and wears nicely and set makeup without any issues, but if you used the required 0.24 grams every time to get that full SPF rating you’d get less than 17 uses from the entire bottle. That’s more than $1 per use, and if you’re re-applying multiple times throughout the day it would run out even faster!
And that’s not even considering the cake face you’d be experiencing after piling on that much face powder. The Color Science Total Face Shield SPF 50 has some extremely solid data backing up its SPF factor. They tested the SPF rating before and after having participants of the test sit in a jacuzzi for 80 minutes and the SPF was virtually the same! That’s amazing, but it sports a hefty price tag of $69 for a measly 6 grams of powder.
The brand claims that it’s a 90 day supply of product when in fact you would only get 25 uses out of the tiny bottle. If you can afford and justify the price of the Color Science powder definitely go for it!
Need help tracking down an affordable sunscreen for your skincare routine? There’s no need to break the bank, I’ve done the digging for you! Go catch some rays with one of these cheap acne-prone skin friendly suncreens!