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Product Summary
- Contains alcohol
- Contains fragrance
- Water resistant
- Friction resistant
- Sweat & Sebum resistant
- Oxybenzone & Octinoxate free
Preface
Hello friends, how are you? Hope you are enjoying this year thanksgiving with your loved ones!
I have finally had a chance to wear this new Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Skincare Milk 2022 formulation. I love its previous version and (spoiler!) I don't enjoy this 2022 version as much. Before we get into that, let's do our usual routine, shall we?
My skin profile: I have oily skin, living in hot humid tropical country. Dare I say I have a high tolerance on how greasy a sunscreen can be.
I doubt you can still source the older formulation, but to check if your Anessa Perfect UV Milk is the same version as mine, you can inspect the back of the bottle. It should say "Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Skincare Milk N" (アネッサ パーフェクトUV スキンケアミルク N); and also on the plastic packaging, the same label is printed at the bottom of front side, and at the top of back side.
Characteristics
Packaging:
It comes in gold bottle, 60ml volume. The bottle has blue font (previous version was using darker brown font)
Texture:
It's fluid milky sunscreen. You need to shake it before use. It has a shaker ball in it. Upon rubbing, the fluid feels cushion like. It has thicker viscosity compared to 2020 formulation.
Scent:
It claims to have fruity floral scent, it's not fragrance-free. The scent is strong for me. I actually sneezed the first few days using it. I don't like the scent, smells like lemon based dish washing liquid. The people within the same room will be able to smell the scent. The scent dissipates after 5 minutes or so.
White Cast:
Yes, it has white cast, even more so after reapplication.
Finish:
It's too shiny and tacky for me, unlike its previous version that has soft matte finish. What a bummer!
Pilling:
No pilling on fresh application or reapplication.
Eye Stinging:
No eye stinging for me. I can apply it on eyelids just fine.
ADHERENCE
Preparation
I applied the sunscreen on my left bare cleansed arm, took photos using UV camera (Sunscreenr). I let it set for ~50mins before taking the UV camera picture.
Shine Level and White Cast
The sunscreen feels velvety on my arms; however on my face, it's a greasy mess. My face looks sweaty with this. It doesn't help in the morning, I don't have 30 minutes to spare before putting on mask (more on this on next section). I can feel the mask sticking to the sunscreen (tackiness).
The cast is obvious enough for my face, I won't say I look like casper with this on, but I look paler with this sunscreen. I tried wearing this out to office setting, and nobody seems to notice I looked paler than usual.
To be fair, I'm mostly surrounded with sweet human beings thankfully, so I doubt they would comment negatively haha!
Coverage
It has very even coverage, as expected.
Rub Test and Removal
I rubbed back of my palm section under running water for ~50 seconds vigorously. My palm was actually red and sore from the rubbing.
Using my gentle cleanser (Biore Mild Foam), I can still see the sunscreen remnants, no difference from rubbing with plain water.
MUJI Mild Cleansing Oil removes the sunscreen completely.
Wear Test - No Mask
Preparation:
On this swatch, I used my usual AM skincare underneath the sunscreen. This is what my usual AM routine looks like:
- DHC Cleansing Oil
- Finacea Gel
- Benzac AC 10% Benzoyl Peroxide Cream
- DIY - Niacinamide + Tranexamic acid serum in simple water and glycerin base
- Sunscreen of the day
I don't do any wait times. As the serum is my own concoction, I always make it very watery and leaves no emollient residue. By the time I apply my sunscreen, my face is hydrated, but not damp or wet for sure.
As usual, I skipped applying on eyelids and space between the nose and lips, and my ears. On my neck, I'm using Allie Chrono Facial UV Gel. Notice the sunscreen is trapped on the sides of my nose (pictured below). It also gets trapped on eyelids creases.
You can see the pictures below to see how it looks under UV camera. I also put check-ins as day went on.
My face gets oily as day goes on, nothing new. At 4 hours mark, I could see the sunscreen layer started breaking up due to the face sebum.
Wear Test - With Mask
Preparation:
On this swatch, I used my usual AM skincare underneath the sunscreen. This is what my usual AM routine looks like:
- DHC Cleansing Oil
- Finacea Gel
- Benzac AC 10% Benzoyl Peroxide Cream
- DIY - Niacinamide + Tranexamic acid serum in simple water and glycerin base
- Sunscreen of the day
Within the 3 hours period (from fresh application to prior blotting), I wore the mask for total 30 minutes. You can see from the photos below, the mask took off the sunscreen on upper and lower cheeks, tip of the nose, and around chin area.
This is how the mask looked like:
Wear Test - With Mask and Blotting
Preparation:
On this swatch, I used my usual AM skincare underneath the sunscreen.
This is roughly the things I did:
- 11:05 AM - fresh application
- 11:27 AM - mask on
- 11:45 AM - mask off
- 01:00 PM - blot with tissue
- 04:00 PM - blot with tissue
- 04:19 PM - mask on
- 05:15 PM - mask off
Conclusion
I wished it has more matte and dry to the touch finish. Too bad. I won't be repurchasing for my face, but I don't mind using the remaining stash on my body. It's not as tacky on my dry body skin.
The staying power is decent if I don't wear mask. We still have mask mandate on certain condition here, so I probably use it at where I need not to wear mask.
The scent is such a downgrade from previous version. At this point of time, my nose has already acclimated to it, so I'm not bothered with the scent anymore.
This sunscreen doesn't sting my face during retinization period. There was a day or two where my face was dehydrated and using this sunscreen didn't exacerbate the issue. For that, I'd recommend for people with dry skin that is not sensitive to fragrance and alcohol.
Disclaimer: I only use the UV camera to see if a sunscreen disperses an even layer (or patchy and spotty); and if I miss out a spot during application. It's not by all means to measure the sunscreen protection level. Got mine from sunscreenr.com. It's compatible with android phone.
