‘Tis the season for sunscreen, they say (they wrong, because sunscreen is an year-round necessity, but summer seems to bring a peak in interest). I’m trying out some new moisturizing sunscreens and I plan to bring you on this journey by reviewing them all. Let’s start with Fenty’s Hydra Vizor.
The Hydra Vizor is a fluid cream that is easy to spread on the skin and has quite a shiny finish that does not dry down.
Being that this is a product from Fenty, how it looks on darker skintones was certainly taken into account when creating it. Most traditional sunscreens look ashy on darker skintones, because the sun blocking ingredients tend to leave a white cast. I’m pale as a ghost so I can’t tell you how this looks on dark skin, but I can see it is slightly pink tinted, which might alleviate, if not totally eliminate, the ashy effect.
My issue with it though, is that it looks greasy right off the bat (which is a recurrent problem I have with traditional sunscreens). On days when I wore only this on my face, my skin looked instantly shiny, and in an oily way, not a healthy glow-y skin way. On their website this is specifically advertised as “apply before makeup for the ultimate canvas”, so I’ll be judging it on that capacity too. I wore it under both a long wearing and a regular foundation, and compared the performance with other moisturizing sunscreens. I can safely say that the Hydra Vizor is not for people with oily skin. I have combination skin, and this did not perform well on oilier areas.
My foundations lasted for a shorter amount of time and wore worse than with other sunscreens. My long wearing foundation, that does not get oily at all when I use my favourite (so far) moisturizing sunscreen (Defense Essential Glow Moisturizer SPF30 from Paula’s Choice, reviewed here), was extremely oily around my nose area just after 4 hours when I used it with the Hydra Vizor. In general, foundations get greasy before the 8 hour mark, and I start to have missing patches of foundation on the oily areas of my face before the day is over.
Not all is bad though. Looking at the ingredients, there is a lot of good there: Safflower Oleosomes (time-releasing capsules of emollient oils, good for long lasting moisture), niacinamide (good for every thing, honestly), hyaluronic acid (good for hydration), aloe vera (soothing, moisturizing) and various forms of vitamin E (antioxidant, added protection against UVB rays). There are quite a few perfuming ingredients that I could do without, but they are at the bottom of the list, so at the lowest concentration, and the rest of the formulation is soothing enough for me not to worry about their irritant potential.
Active Ingredients: avobenzone 3%, homosalate 9%, octisalate 4.5%
Inactive Ingredients: water, glycerin, carthamus tinctorius (safflower) oleosomes, pentylene glycol, butylene glycol, c12-15 alkyl benzoate, niacinamide, zea mays (corn) starch, hyaluronic acid, sodium hyaluronate, citrullus lanatus (watermelon) seed extract, adansonia digitata pulp extract, barosma betulina leaf extract, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, tocopheryl acetate, gluconolactone, sorbitan oleate, acrylates/c10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, sodium acrylate/sodium acryloyldimethyl taurate copolymer, dimethicone, isohexadecane, ethylhexyl methoxycrylene, polysorbate 80, xanthan gum, sodium hydroxide, citric acid, potassium hydroxide, tocopherol, trisodium ethylenediamine disuccinate, ethylhexylglycerin, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, phenoxyethanol, fragrance, benzyl salicylate, citral, hexyl cinnamal, limonene, linalool, red 33.
I have the 30ml travel size. Packaging is a small cylindrical tube with a pump. It’s easy to use and travel with. The full size has refills so as to reduce overall plastic consumption, which I appreciate. Price is 22,99€ for 30 ml, 35,99 € for the full size (50ml).
In conclusion, I think this would work well for dry skin types (and dry skin types only). I blame the Safflower Oleosomes for the extended greasiness, because they are time-releasing spheres of emollient oils, which would sound lovely if my face wasn’t oily enough already. It is not a good makeup base for me. I’ll save my Hydra Vizor for the cooler, drier months, and I won’t repurchase it – but I can see the value for someone looking for a sunscreen that delivers moisture throughout the day. Not for me, but not a bad product.
