Challenge 2: Sun Protection

Euch. I have just spent the last hour trawling the internet trying to find some sun cream that doesn’t come wrapped in plastic, and I’m feeling entirely disheartened. Bron and I are off to a festival in a couple of weeks time – The Big Green Gathering – and sun protection is an absolute must. Aside from the obvious issues with skin cancer, etc, I always burn. Yes, my skin generally has two tones: white or red.

I was hoping to be able to find a solid cream, like Lush’s solid shampoo, or at least something that comes in a glass bottle, but haven’t been able to find anything. There are a couple of companies I found that come near, but not quite. Spiezia Organics make a range of skincare products that use purely organic ingredients with no chemicals or additives, plus most of their products come packaged in glass. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? And yes it is, except that they don’t seem to make any sun block – after-sun, yes, great, but not the protection you need beforehand.

I also found a company called Lavera that, again, make skincare products without the yuck. But it looks like all their products come in plastic tubes or plastic bottles. There is a sun protection spray that looks promising, but I can’t tell from the picture whether it’s in a plastic or a glass bottle. I’ve emailed them to ask, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be plastic.

And then there’s Badger, who’ve got a great range of balms for all sorts of things. You can buy some of them in Boots. For the most part they come in little metal tins - they’re pretty good and they do what they say on the tin. If you ever have trouble sleeping I can definitely recommend their sleep balm. However, like Spiezia, they only do an after-sun balm – there is a sun protection lotion, but as it’s not a solid balm it comes in a little plastic tube. They do an anti-bug balm, though, so I’m thinking I’ll see if I can a pot of that, as I’m sure there’ll be some midges to contend with at the festival.

But that still leaves me without any sun cream. With any luck, one of the companies I’ve tried contacting will get back to me with some good news, but if not then I’m afraid the plastic will not be able to be avoided. If I do have to buy plastic, though, I’ll be making sure that it’s an ethical product that contains only natural ingredients.