Last summer was a long, hot one here in SoCal. It stretched into early November, no joke. And with a long, hot summer and a family of 4, we emptied dozens of bottles of sunscreen. If you do the math on the $10 bottles of sunscreen, we’re making a big investment and slathering a lot of lotion.

Sometime in the middle of the year, I hastily bought a three pack of the aerosol spray sunscreens that claimed to be kid-friendly. The 3-pack saved me about $5 and I spent $25ish on the three-pack. Mom win, right? No, actually. It turns out it’s not kid friendly, people-friendly or environmentally friendly.

It’s not like I’ve been in the dark about bad ingredients in sunscreen, but I definitely let the economy and easy-of-use play into my decision-making.

There were two moments that got me out of my economy/efficiency mindset.

The first: I was ostracized (I say that lovingly) on a zoom call with my colleagues when they found out what I was using. They poked fun at me, but the message was clear: “Kelsey, throw that shit away!”

The second: my little family was visiting extended family in Oregon, aka home of the woke hippie types. Again, I say this lovingly… I admire the heck out of them. We were rafting down the Rogue River and while the rest of us were reapplying obsessively, they were declining. They’d rather the risk of the sunburn than the risk of the chemicals. At the time, I thought “your body, your decision, but you look like a chili pepper.” And now I’m thinking, “you’re right. The garbage I had was no good.”

Ultimately, I had to ask myself: do I want known carcinogens, endocrine disrupters and allergens going directly on my babies’ skin? My husbands? Mine? My friends that ask to borrow when we’re at the beach? And do I want to do that all summer long, every long summer of my life? That’s a lot of incremental exposure to unnecessary health detractors.

Further, is convenience so important to me that I can’t take an extra few minutes to slather the kids using my hands and kick the environmentally harming aerosol cans?

NO.

I often repeat to myself: what is more important than health? NOTHING. Either pay for it up front with better, sometimes more expensive choices, or potentially pay for it another way when your body demands you take care of a problem you could have prevented.

My personal skin regimen now includes SPF 30 sunscreen from ACURE, as I’ve mentioned before. The active ingredient is zinc oxide, so when I’m smoothing it on in the morning, I have to really rub it into my skin to get the whiteness to go away, then walk away for a few minutes before applying makeup.

And the all-over sunscreen that has replaced the 3 FULL aerosol cans I disposed of, is Thinkbaby’s SPF 50. This tube somehow goes a long way for my family. Even still, I order at least a few at a time so I can have one with our beach gear, one in our front bathroom and one in my purse. I haven’t tried the Thinkbaby stick, but given how impatient my kids are with the sunscreening process, I think this season, I’ll get the stick as well.

I won’t go back either. I’m really happy with this CLEAN upgrade!!