Paula’s Choice Barely There Sheer Matte Tint SPF 30

My skin has been behaving pretty well lately, so I got cocky and decided to try a new sunscreen. Paula’s Choice was having a sale recently where if you bought $50 worth of product, you got $10 off. So after reading reviews and assessing the ingredients, I added the Barely There Sheer MatteTint SPF 30 to my cart and proceeded to check out. (It is on sale right now for $10, so that’s an added bonus.)

I chose the color “Level 1”, which looks almost white on the website on my laptop, but in real life, it’s more of a fair/light tone. The texture is creamy and smooth. It doesn’t have any offensive odor and doesn’t even have a sunscreen smell. 

After completing my normal skincare routine, I applied the Paula’s Choice Barely There Sheer Matte Tint with my fingers. It went on easily and didn’t sting my eyes, because it’s a physical sunscreen. It was a good color match and blended into my skin easily. It’s very sheer and doesn’t look like you’re wearing anything. The finish is supposed to be “satin-matte”, but I felt like it was on the dewy side.

I applied my everyday make-up over this sunscreen and found that my concealer tugged a bit more than normal. There is a tacky quality to this sunscreen and it doesn’t allow cream products to slip over it very easily. A bit of eye cream helped my undereye concealer to apply as normal. Then I applied my loose powder and mineral powder foundation, which both went on easily and helped to achieve the matte finish that I wanted.

This sunscreen seemed to make my skin oilier, because I noticed that I had to blot more frequently than usual. Aside from that, I liked the way it looked and enjoyed applying it because it’s creamy and didn’t emphasize flakes or dry patches (which I get from using tretioin.) So things were looking good and I was thinking I had found new sunscreen bestie! 

Unfortunately, it made me break out. Ugh. I started to notice little closed comedones on my cheeks that wouldn’t go away. I tried using this sunscreen for a little over a week. When I finally accepted that it was the cause of the breakouts, I went back to my Skinceuticals SPF 50 (Fusion and Sheer formulas mixed together). My skin cleared right up.

I don’t know what ingredient could be problematic. 

 

I don’t see anything that seems suspicious. But needless to say, I won’t be using this sunscreen anymore, which is a bummer. I do like other Paula’s Choice Products, like the Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid Exfoliant, but the Barely There Sheer Matte Tint SPF 30 was not a hit with my skin.