Vox Publica

A little while ago I came back from picking up Camila at daycare. Her daycare is about 2 miles from my house and I walk to pick her up and back - this means that every day, in the middle of the day, I spend almost two hours under the sun, not a trivial amount.

In my youth, that wouldn't have been an issue. I always tanned beautifully and seldom burnt (though I remember one trip to Ecuador where I didn't fare so well). But with age my skin has changed and now my face and upper chest acquires an ugly red tint if I spend almost any time under the sun (my arms, meanwhile, continue to tan just as well).

I usually hate wearing sunscreen, both for the oily feeling and the horrible coconut smell. I like spray sunscreens for this reason (and because they are easy to apply), but even those with a high SPF don't seem to work that well for me. So Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock has been a Zeus-sent to me (I was going to say godsent, but if I'm going to be invoking a god, I might as well go for the big honcho). The sunscreen is not as oily as other sunscreens, it spreads fairly easily and does not smell of coconut. More importantly, it works quite well. I use the SPF 70 stuff, what they have at Costco, and while I'm still a bit red after that walk, it's definitely nowhere as much as when I forget to put it on. This year Neutrogena has come up with an SPF-85 sunblock, available at Amazon but not at Costco, and I may try that when I run out of the stuff I have (but this stuff lasts a long time). Anyway, all of this is to say that I recommend it :-)