Homemade sunblock

For my honeymoon, I took with me some homemade sunblock. We also bought commercial sunblock once we got there. The commercial sunblock was my backup for when I ran out or if I should find it unusable for whatever reason. I did not test my sunblock before using it so I had no idea if it was going to be effective. At the end of the trip, I have to say, it absolutely DOES work!

Basically, I had some titanium dioxide and zinc oxide powder lying around with my soaping supplies and added lots of that stuff to my homemade lotion. It completely changed the texture of the lotion and every time I added a small spoonful of either powder to the lotion, I rubbed some of the mixture onto myself to see how bad the whitening effect was. I did not use micronized powders, so I think whitening is something I just had to deal with. I stopped added powder when I figured I don't want to whitened more than this. Then I was done and I had sunblock!

Some things to note about this sunblock. It's not waterproof or even water resistant. It readily washes off with water. That was okay with me since I spent most of my time out of the water because I don't particularly like the water. It also definitely whitened the skin wherever I applied and yes, the whitening effect was definitely noticeable. I supposed I could have used an oil and beeswax lotion to make it more water resistant, but I don't like the greasy, sort of sticky feeling of those formulations. As for the whitening effect, it is possible that I went a little overboard with the amount of powder and could have done with less. Whatever the case, I can say that I spent almost every day for at least 10 days lying on a sunny beach and never burned and tanned minimally. The one day I tanned the most was the one day I didn't use my homemade sunblock. Granted I stayed under a shady umbrella most of the time, I'm telling you I've tried many brands of sunblock and this stuff works!

Next time, I'll try it with a little less powder, or make it with a small amount of colorant to balance out the whitening effect. I'm still not sure how to make it water resistant without using beeswax and if I do use beeswax, I'm not sure how much would be needed to make it really water resistant. Hmmm... I'll have to do a little experimenting next summer. :-)