If you buy only one thing this month, make it an SPF

I have a confession to make and for a beauty editor it’s a pretty salacious one.

Until about two years ago, I only wore SPF on those rare days when the UK sun revved itself up to more than a tepid glint, or on dedicated ‘sunshine’ holidays (I can almost hear the horrified gasps of my beauty peers now). It is not, I might add, something I’m proud of, especially as I’ve spent my whole career telling people that smothering yourself in SPF is beauty rule number one.

Almost every skincare product launch I’ve ever attended has included the sobering fact that more than 80% of skin ageing is down to UV exposure, while every dermatologist I’ve spoken to (and there have been many) has cited SPF as the single most important thing you can do for your skin. Yet there I was, flagrantly disregarding my own (very sage) advice.

But what’s changed my behaviour now? In a word: pregnancy. While pregnant with my second child, I started to notice pigmentation (or melasma, to give it its medical name), a common condition triggered by pregnancy hormones and exacerbated by sunlight. Vanity won out and forced me to finally incorporate an SPF into my daily regime. Simultaneously discovering a few formulas I actually enjoyed wearing helped no end, too.

The result was transformative (a word I don’t use lightly after 15 years in the industry). It turns out that what I hadn’t quite fathomed when the skin experts spoke about SPF making a huge difference was the immediate effect on your skin. It’s not just staving off potential sun damage or future-proofing, but the product itself is also skin-improving, which my complexion bears testament to, and at the ripe old age of 44 my skin has never looked better.

Consistency is key and that means getting into the habit (which sometimes requires a shift in mindset) of a cleanse-moisturise-SPF routine (I applaud anyone who's able to add in more steps, but these are the three basics). Finding a formula you actually enjoy using is half the battle and for me that meant a tinted sunscreen with added skincare ingredients, such as hyaluronic acid to impart a radiant glow (my current favourite is MZ Skin Tint & Protect Skin Perfecting SPF30 Tinted Moisturiser).

For days when I want to look a little more polished and wear foundation, I  like the texture that some mineral SPFs can lend. But, other than that, I have no real preference between a chemical or physical sunscreen. As a dermatologist once told me, everything, including water, is a ‘chemical’, so the notion that non-chemical products are better for you is hogwash.

Combining your skincare with a built-in SPF is fine, but make sure that it’s at least SPF30 (and that goes for every skin tone, no matter how dark), which offers broad-spectrum protection (i.e. it safeguards against both UVA, or ‘ageing’ rays, as well as UVB, or ‘burning’ rays). The same, however, can't be said for makeup that contains SPF: while the protection offered might be the same, few of us slather on enough foundation to cover every crevice and get adequate coverage.

The take-home? Wear SPF every day, all year round, even on those drizzly, grey, having-to-drag-the-dog-out-of-the-door kind of days. For those in the back, that’s every SINGLE. DAY. OF. THE. YEAR.

Get slathering.