Do Black Women Need Sunscreen?

As ridiculous as this may sound, I didn’t think I needed sunscreen until about last year. I actually always used to wonder "do Black women need sunscreen?" until I’d gone on vacation to Mexico and I couldn’t understand why my face stung every time I put something on it! I’d later realized that I was sunburnt even though it didn’t look like I was. My best friend (whose mom is a dermatologist) scolds me all of the time for it, but growing up we didn’t speak about sunscreen in my household. It was a common misconception that as people of color, we didn’t need sunscreen because we have melanin. We are wrong. Stop thinking this, lol.

Now that I’m better informed, I’m taking the time to find moisturizers for the summer that work for my combination skin. I’ve been partnering with Olay for a few months now, and they sent along their newest Olay Luminous Whip Face Moisturizer with SPF 25 and I’m really feeling it. Admittedly, I haven’t been using it everyday (I’m working on limiting the number of products I test out lately because of my acne), but the days that I do I love how my skin feels. And it’s also awesome to feel confident that your product is working for you. I like to use it before I apply my makeup as armor almost. It’s pretty great, lol. This will definitely be coming along with me on my sunnier trips this summer, and I'm looking into adding more daily face moisturizers with sunscreen to my rotation.

If you'd like more info about what sunscreens work well for Brown skin, you can also check out Bustle's article I was recently quoted in. It's wildly informative and Amanda did an incredible going in depth about what works and what doesn't. It's a great read.

Do you have any face products with sunscreen you love to use? Drop them in the comments below, you know I love recommendations from y’all!

*This post is done in partnership with Olay but trust, all opinions are my own.