Sunscreen Criteria
This is a sunscreen review blog, below are my criteria for grading a sunscreen:
There are 4 criteria by which I grade sunscreen, sorted in descending order of importance. Each criterion is indicated by a rating, the perfect rating is 5.
1. UVA protection: Est means the PPD value is estimated, hence please take it with a grain of salt. For facial and hands sun protection, PPD > 15 is highly preferred, for body PPD > 10 is passable. Besides PPD value, the sunscreen’s efficiency at filtering out long wavelength UVA ray is also taken into account when considering the overall UVA protection. So the UVA protection rating may deviate from the standards set forth below.
- PPD > 25: 5/5
- PPD 20-25: 4/5
- PPD 15-20: 3/5
- PPD 10-15: 2/5
- PPD < 10: 1/5
2. Transparency: Does it make me look like a clown or as if I bathed in cooking oil? Keep in mind it exclusively deals with visual aspect of sunscreen.
3. Texture: Putting up with thick, greasy and oily sunscreen is agonizing. Questions to ask for: Is the sunscreen matt, non sticky? Is it light or heavy? Does it burn or sting? Texture is about the sense of touch. Criteria 2 and 3 are all judged with 2 fingers worth of sunscreen applied liberally to face and neck.
4. Price: A price unit is the cost in US dollars for 25 mL of sunscreen.
-
P< 2: Affordable: Sun protection without breaking the bank, yay!
-
2<P<3: Moderate: Okay, getting higher now, but still acceptable.
-
3< P<4: Expensive: For excellent sunscreens this may be justified, but still……
-
P>4: Exorbitant: No sunscreen should cost this much.
Verdicts: For recommendations, please refer to the verdict given at the end of each review, especially focus on Likely to Buy Again and Buy Again verdicts.
