January 7, 2021 replace: This product is being discontinued and reformulated, so should you adore it, I counsel stocking up now. Buy hyperlinks are on the backside of this publish!
December 22, 2020 replace: It has come to my consideration that I solely gave this sunscreen a 3.8 out of 5 stars. Contemplating I’ve been utilizing it nonstop because the time of this evaluation and have gone via a staggering variety of bottles of it, I’m elevating my ranking and updating my conclusion. New textual content is in daring under!
The final time I reviewed a Missha sunscreen, it didn’t go nicely for both me or the sunscreen. Fortunately, I had managed to dam these dangerous reminiscences out for lengthy sufficient that after I was panic-shopping Amazon for a last-minute sunscreen replenishment a couple of months in the past, I used to be keen to present the available Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel a shot. I’ve emptied a handful dozens of tubes of this sunscreen now, and I’m positive I’ll empty extra sooner or later. Right here’s a evaluation.
This publish accommodates affiliate hyperlinks, which permit me to earn a small fee on purchases made via these hyperlinks. Affiliate hyperlinks are marked with an asterisk(*).
Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel Overview
Sunscreen is by far an important ingredient of my every day skincare routine. Solar harm causes the overwhelming majority of seen pores and skin ageing, together with coarsening pores and skin texture, deep wrinkles, blotchy pigmentation, and drastic lack of collagen and common elasticity. I’ve lengthy mentioned that the easiest way to stop untimely pores and skin ageing is by sporting sunscreen with excessive UVA and UVB safety within the really useful amount daily. For these causes, I’m very diligent and really choosy about my sunscreens.
Objective: Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel is an natural (“chemical”) sunscreen product with excessive UVA and UVB safety capabilities, meant for on a regular basis use (versus sport or in-water use).
Finest fitted to: Regular or oily pores and skin with out alcohol or perfume sensitivities.
Don’t use if: Your pores and skin is vulnerable to dryness or you might be delicate to alcohol, silicones, perfume, or the rest within the components checklist.
When and find out how to use: Apply because the final step in your morning skincare routine earlier than make-up. Take a beneficiant quantity (1/4 tsp is the overall advice, primarily based on the scale of a big male face; I do a bit greater than a nickel-sized quantity of product, or three fingers’ size) and unfold evenly over face. I extremely counsel utilizing my Three Fingers technique, as seen within the IG video under, to attain the smoothest and most even protection. Let sunscreen set for quarter-hour earlier than making use of make-up.
Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel components: Water, homosalate, alcohol denat., ethylhexyl salicylate, dipropylene glycol, silica, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane, methyl methacrylate crosspolymer, bis-ethylhexyloxyphenol methoxyphenyl triazine, isoamyl p-methoxycinnamate, octocrylene, VP/hexadecene copolymer, acrylates/dimethicone copolymer, water, limonia acidissima extract, artemisia princeps leaf extract, camellia sinensis leaf extract, chrysanthemum indicum flower extract, cinnamomum cassia bark extract, diospyros kaki leaf extract, morus alba fruit extract, pueraria lobata root extract, centaurea vyanus flower water, helichrysum italicum flower water, thymus vulgaris (thyme) leaf water, methoxy PEG/PPG-25/4 dimethicone, Bis-PEG/PPG-20/5 PEG/PPG-20/5 dimethicone, dimethicone, acrylates/C10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, caprylic/capric triglyceride, sodium hydroxide, butylene glycol, cyclopentasiloxane, BHT, disodium EDTA, phenoxyethanol, caprylyl glycol, ethylhexylglycerin, 1,2-hexanediol, perfume
Freaking unreadable.
Edited to make it freaking readable.
Notable components: Since this can be a sunscreen evaluation, I’ve highlighted the UV filters within the components checklist typed above. The Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel makes use of completely natural, aka “chemical” filters.
It’s usually mentioned that chemical filters are extra irritating to pores and skin than inorganic/mineral/bodily filters, however that, like a lot else in skincare, is nowhere close to common. CosDNA doesn’t flag any of the filters on this sunscreen as recognized irritants. Personally, my pores and skin has by no means had a problem with chemical filters. Many different completely satisfied chemical sunscreen customers really feel the identical approach. Others could discover their pores and skin can’t tolerate chemical filters, or a minimum of some chemical filters. As with all skincare, YMMV.
(If you happen to’re fairly new to skincare and discover the concept of utilizing a “mineral” sunscreen extra engaging than a “chemical” one because of the descriptors, nonetheless, please don’t let the terminology put you off from making an attempt a chemical sunscreen out. Every part is chemical substances. Additionally, natural/chemical sunscreens have a tendency to attain ranges of beauty class that bodily/mineral sunscreens can’t match.)
Of extra concern within the components right here is the alcohol denat. that occupies the third slot within the checklist. My private stance on alcohol in skincare is that so long as your pores and skin isn’t delicate to it, it’s typically tremendous however could be problematic if it’s fairly excessive up within the components checklist. Right here, it’s up fairly excessive within the components checklist.
In a sunscreen like this, the alcohol is presumably current to skinny out the feel of the product and velocity up drying time. This a lot alcohol could be drying, nonetheless. As famous within the “Don’t use if:” part above, in case you have dry pores and skin, you could wish to go on the Missha Aqua Solar Gel. The Aqua Solar Gel additionally accommodates silica, one other drying ingredient.
There are a selection of botanical extracts decrease within the components checklist. These could add some further antioxidant safety to the sunscreen, although I don’t actually think about them that notable. They’re most likely not current in vital quantities.
Efficiency
In Ok-beauty jargon, a solar “gel” sunscreen has a lighter and extra watery consistency than the denser, heavier solar lotions. A lot of my favourite sunscreens are gels. I recognize their weightlessness and the way rapidly they set. Missha Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel is the epitome of a solar gel. It comes out of the tube a bit runny, spreads simply over pores and skin, and dries quickly to a completely clear and impartial end.
Disbursed from tube.
Unfold onto pores and skin.
After a couple of minutes.
No white solid, and, after about 10 minutes or so, no shine. Actually, by the point I put make-up on, I can’t even really feel any sunscreen on my pores and skin in any respect. It disappears so utterly that typically I get nervous. Did I placed on sufficient? Ought to I placed on extra? A second layer? Normally I don’t, however the thought typically crosses my thoughts.
The mushy matte end lasts all day for me, and because the sunscreen virtually vanishes after utility, it doesn’t intrude with my make-up, both.
That whole lack of oily residue or shine comes with a disadvantage, although. I guess you’ll be able to guess what it’s.
Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel could be fairly drying. There are sunscreens that allow me completely skip moisturizer within the morning, just like the A’Pieu Pure Block Day by day Solar Cream* that I reviewed at Beautytap some time again. The Missha solar gel just isn’t a type of sunscreens. I attempted it on a naked face someday and regretted it half an hour later, as my face started slowly tightening right into a desiccated husk. Placing it on over a purely water-based moisturizer doesn’t work a lot better, both.
I needed to experiment a bit to discover a moisturizer of simply the correct weight to layer beneath it: gentle sufficient to dry down rapidly and cleanly, however with sufficient fatty content material to buffer my pores and skin towards all that alcohol. COSRX Superior Snail 92 All In One Cream works nicely. Currently I’ve been utilizing the SEKKISEI Emulsion beneath it, and that works completely.
The Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel smells strongly of alcohol blended with a type of sharp, synthetic floral perfume. The alcohol is unquestionably the dominant observe. The scent fades by the point the sunscreen is dry, however I discovered it startling the primary few instances I used it.
Regardless of these drawbacks, I discover myself returning to this sunscreen time and time once more. The acute beauty class of the product mixed with the UVA and UVB safety within the highest ranges allowed on Korean cosmetics labeling make it a straightforward alternative.
Now, virtually two years after I began utilizing it for the primary time, I really feel much more assured about its UV safety. The SPF labeling on merchandise could not all the time be dependable, however our pores and skin itself supplies suggestions within the type of freckling, tanning, and burning when inadequately protected. I’ve now used the Missha All Round Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel via two SoCal summers and lots of sunny seaside days. I’ve gotten sunburned shoulders and bikini tan traces, however my face, neck, and chest, the place I take advantage of the Missha sunscreen, haven’t modified colour within the slightest, and no new spots have proven up wherever I apply it. That is regardless of my frequent use of photosensitizing actives like AHAs and tretinoin. As an added bonus, the Missha solar gel is usually approach simpler to search out on my normal procuring channels than the A’Pieu solar gel that I additionally love.
Conclusion
It’s not good. It dries the hell out of my face if I’m not cautious. However with a bit consideration paid to the moisturizer I take advantage of beneath, Missha Secure Block Aqua Solar Gel offers me robust on a regular basis solar safety in an extremely cosmetically elegant product. I’ve tried a number of different sunscreens since then and haven’t discovered something I’ve liked almost as a lot.
Ranking: 3.8/5 4.5/5
Ranking scale:
1 – This needs to be taken off the market, or this failed at its one major job.
2 – Induced me some issues or doesn’t work very nicely; wouldn’t purchase once more.
3 – Meh. Neither nice nor dangerous.
4 – Fairly good. Would purchase once more except I discover one thing higher.
5 – I’ll by no means be available in the market for a alternative except this one is discontinued.
