My Dad the Chemist

More often than not, my daughter will say “no want to put on sunscreen” when she knows I’m about to come at her with some sunscreen before going outside in the morning. I usually have to wrestle with her a bit before she finally gives in to my persistent efforts to smear some on her. Since I don’t always feel too confident about how evenly I’ve applied her sunscreen, I’ve started relying on a sunscreen stick as an extra layer of insurance after we go outdoors.…

No matter how well you formulate a mineral sunscreen, it’s bound to leave some sort of white cast on your skin. In my experience, the only remedy for this problem is to (a) own the ghostly look with confidence; (b) opt for a chemical sunscreen; or (c) cover it up with makeup or, better yet, for those of us who don’t know how to use makeup…try out a tinted mineral sunscreen! Tinted sunscreens usually contain iron oxides to help counteract the ghostliness of zinc oxide. So you…

Mineral sunscreen, conditioner, and hand lotion are the top three types of products I buy all the time. I’m pretty loyal to a product once I find a version I like, but I’m not afraid to try other brands every now and then just to see if something better has appeared on the horizon. Conditioner is a particularly tricky one because I find that my hair’s needs depend on the environment. When I lived in NYC, I didn’t really need any special conditioner to detangle my hair.…