The Best Sunscreen If You're Spending Time Outside This Summer

SPF (or Sun Protection Factor) is the amount of time you can spend outdoors without burning. “Say, if you go outside and within ten minutes you turn red, well, when I give you a sunscreen, multiply that number by the normal amount of time it took you to burn, and that’s how long it should work,” says Dr. Lisa Ginn, board-certified dermatologist and Skincare.com expert. “We used to recommend a minimum SPF of 15, but then the American Academy of Dermatology started to recommend a 30. SPF 30 is pretty mainstay and the difference between an SPF 8 and an SPF 30 is dramatic. If you have an active lifestyle, however, I would recommend an SPF 50+. Apply first thing in the morning, try to avoid the sun when it’s at its peak from 11am to 3pm, and then reapply your SPF.”

Dr. Ginn offers a quick word of warning when you’re looking at products that claim to have super high SPFs—read: SPF over 100. “The chemicals in these products to get these high, high numbers are not necessarily good,” she says. Plus, often, this also causes many of us to believe we can stay out longer without reapplying, despite instructions stating that sunscreen—and a full shot glass of it, at that—must be reapplied every two hours to remain effective.

Looking for a sunscreen that gets high marks? In the aforementioned Consumer Reports test, one of the top ranking sunscreens was actually one of our favorites here at Skincare.com: La Roche-Posay’s Anthelios 60 Body Milk. This melt-in sunscreen milk, with SPF 60, scored a perfect 100 in the test, for the second year in a row. The sunscreen is formulated with the multi-patented Cell-Ox Shield XL filtering system which provides an optimized combo of UVA/UVB filters for broad spectrum protection that is perfect for sensitive skin. Not to mention, the sunscreen is formulated with the antioxidant-rich Senna Alata, a tropical leaf extract known to help defend skin against free radicals caused by UV rays.