Product Review: Mentholatum Petit Sunplay Sunscreen

Hello you lovely, beautiful, patient people! How's it been? I've been terribly remiss in my blogging duties, I know. Between moving, and starting the new term, and applying for (and then getting) employment, it's been a busy month! But I'm back now, and with my newer and more jam-packed schedule, I literally have to pencil in blogging time, which should ironically mean that I'll blog more. Or at least more regularly.


Anyway. You know how our North American beauty culture is obsessed (amongst other things) with golden tanned skin and pumped-up lips? Well in Asia, it's all about pale porcelain skin and pumped-up eyelashes. I'll get to the eyelashes in another post, but the pale skin fanaticism is truly rampant. They even have something called "pore-putty", which is a kind of concealer that apparently makes your skin look poreless. (And... um, sealed in?)

I don't know about putting putty on my face, but I can certainly applaud the Asian sentiment towards pale skin. Aesthetics aside, it just makes plain, healthy sense. Besides carrying umbrellas in the sun to shield their skin, the ladies of Hong Kong have about a zillion products to keep their faces fair and beautiful. I was most thrilled with their most basic of all skincare items: Sunscreen.

For all my talk about how everyone should wear it, I really dislike the whole sunscreen process. I mean, I put it on, but I don't love it*. It's sticky and thick and feels kind of gross. And there's that ever-present sunscreen smell that interferes with my fragrance choice for the day. Not fun!

But this! This is fun:

Picture courtesy of Sasa.com

Mentholatum's Petit Sunplay Sunblock. This itty bitty bottle of sunscreen is a godsend. It comes out as a thin white fluid, about the consistency of a cleansing milk, which makes it a breeze to spread onto my skin. It dries to such a nice, sheer and non-sticky finish that I can even put it on my face without fear of breakouts or makeup meltdowns. And the smell! It smells like Grapefruit*! It's delicious and fruity and has not a trace of the sunscreen smell and blends with a lot of my perfumes and I'm in love!

Oh, and did I mention it's SPF 50? Awesome.

The only downfall to all this wonderfulness is that the bottle is truly petite. At a measly 20g, this can't be good for much more than like 2 days at the beach. If you're only using it on your face/neck or arms, it might last a bit longer, but you'll still go through bottles before the summer's over. I guess the small size makes it easy to bring along for touch-ups, but I would love to get my hands on a full-sized bottle. (I can't. They don't exist.)

Well, they say good things come in small packages, and I guess that's the case here. I'm still on the lookout for a great everyday sunscreen that won't break the bank, but for now, I'll stretch out my little stash of Petit Sunplay as much as I can (of course I stocked up before I came home!). Each bottle costs $34 HKD, which works out to be about $4.50 CAD, and they come in 3 scents: grapefruit, raspberry, and green apple. (I didn't try the other 2, but if they're anything like the grapefruit, they will be delightful.) You can get it online from Sasa.com **, or try eBay.


Well friends, it's off to bed for me. This new schedule of mine has me in bed by midnight most nights. Ridiculous! Until next time, stay gorgeous and ... um, screened from the sun!



* I don't love skin cancer even more though, so sunscreen wins.

** They charmingly/alarmingly spell it "rapefruits" on the website and in the store. Which is almost worth the $5 in and of itself.

*** Sasa is like a giant drugstore chain, but without the drugs, or household goods, or any of that other useless crappe. That is to say, it is as if the beauty section of your local drugstore exploded, then became best friends with a Sephora. That is what Sasa is like. It's marvelous.