Sunscreen Gets a Glow Up

Unlike most of us playing catch up, Crystal Ung has been a sunscreen devotee since middle school, when she added drugstore moisturizer with SPF to her daily skin care routine. In the last few years, that devotion to sun protection has only escalated as Ms. Ung, a 34-year-old jewelry designer in Los Angeles, has adopted a multilayered SPF routine that would make any dermatologist proud.

“I decided to try different, non-cream formats because I wanted a way to refresh my sunscreen throughout the day,” said Ms. Ung, who now carries an SPF powder and facial spray in her purse so that she can reapply throughout the day. She has plenty of new options to choose from.

Once a sleepy category that most consumers considered an afterthought, SPF has been made over into a daily necessity that’s incorporated in serums, mists, powders and even hair sprays. Prestige brands like Supergoop and Coola are moving in on drugstore aisle go-tos like Neutrogena and Aveeno with sleeker packaging and reimagined formats that tap into a larger obsession with multistep skin care.

“We’ve always been focused on creating SPF products that people will actually want to wear everyday, and I knew the only way for us to accomplish this was to break the typical sunscreen mold,” said Holly Thaggard, the Supergoop founder. “We also want to help people protect more sun-sensitive spots like the scalp, and that calls for specialized formats.”

While dermatologists are on board with finding new ways to convert consumers to SPF, some of them fear that the new products are being applied incorrectly.

“You need about a shot glass worth of sunscreen to cover exposed skin to get adequate protection, and ideally it should be reapplied every two hours,” said Dr. Neera Nathan, a dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Sunscreen in makeup or serum alone usually doesn’t cut it because you need to apply a lot more product than you think to get the SPF on the label.”