remember outside?

seriously, remember that magical place called 'outside'? where your children can run free and tire themselves out. remember mornings that didn't include wrestling your children into parkas, hats, gloves and boots. they are coming, i promise you. i love the changeover every year, but always seem to forget just how annoying it is to wrestle toby to the ground and slather him with sunscreen. which he hates. but hey, it beats boots any day of the week.

so, in anticipation of this glorious seasonal change, i would normally run to the store to buy sunscreen. but this year, i needed to do a little research for you my reader. hello reader. so i headed right to my favorite new website, skin deep for some help. this fancy website rates every skin care product you have on a scale of 0-10. 0 being not scary at all to 10 being throw it away immediately. really cool. i know you are too tired and don't have time to check all this out, so here is what you want to avoid in your kid's sunscreens (and probably yours too), oxy benzone (linked to cancer), parabens & 1-4 dioxane. the problem with a lot of the sunscreens is, if they don't have the bad stuff listed, they tend to not be as sun resistant. so, here are the two that got good ratings from both skin deep and safe mama and also had high UVA/UVB resistance:


california baby SPF#30
$18.00 for 2.9oz (ouch)
the one complaint i read about on line was that it was very thick. i purchased some and yes, it's thicker than say, coppertone water babies, but it's not like those zinc oxide sticks or whatever. kate has been using this on rei since she was a babe and she loves loves loves it. check out the safe mama and the skin deep review for all the info.




mustela sunblock lotion SPF#50
$14.99 for 1.6oz (ouch, ouch)
as you all know, i am such a sucker for all things french. that being said mustela's baby (or 'enfant' for you fellow francophiles) sunscreen SPF50+ got very high ratings from skin deep. but seriously you must check out their home page. what IS that picture? those french, so weird. check out skin deep for all the rating info.

i was able to find the california baby sunscreen at my local whole paycheck, uh, whole foods. the mustela i think would take more seeking out and that's so not my style. both are available on diapers.com, but after spending 15 bucks for a tiny tube of sunscreen, who can stomach paying for shipping? enjoy the outside again people.