Black Girl Sunscreen Make It Matte Sunscreen - SPF 45

I really wanted this to work. Let’s start with the (very few) positives.

First, this has absolutely zero white cast, the formula is completely transparent. It is also spf 45 so that’s what initially drew me to this.

Now the negatives. For starters, this smells like plastic, chemical, gas with a hint of that classic sunscreen scent.

The texture of this is a gel similar to a silicone based primer, if you’ve ever used the original elf poreless face primer, it’s like that. Siliconey, greasy, doesn’t absorb well. It blurs the pores sure but with it being translucent, you’re still going to see the pores. You can’t apply more layers because it doesn’t absorb so you won’t get the full spf protection.

Since it doesn’t absorb, you feel it on your face, it transfers to your clothes, the scent lingers, your hair will stick to your face, just awful.

It’s not really mattifying, it just has that mattifying property that silicone based primers have but if it doesn’t absorb, everything is slick. It feels dry and greasy at the same time.

The last point that I’ll make is that the consistency of this makes it very difficult to wash off. When washing it off my hands, it felt like I had Vaseline on them. If you’ve ever had something like that on your hands, you’d know that just water won’t cut it. When I just need to quickly rinse off my hands from skincare and such, typically a quick rinse will do the trick. When I needed to get this stuff off my face, even my oil cleanser wasn’t enough. Usually I get a pretty good breakdown of product with 1 round of oil cleansing and then I’ll go in with a cream/gel cleanser but this stuff was gross. It just does not break down.

What drew me to this product was the high spf, matte formula, and reasonable price point ($17.99/1.7 fl oz). I know that the transparent aspect is specifically formulated for black people in mind and that’s fine, that’s not why I bought this. I’m here to say that all other aspects of this product are absolutely garbage.

I was going to try it with foundation over top but it was so greasy, I just wiped it off. I was not going into work with that on my face. The second and last time I used this, I used it on slightly oily skin and did my best to layer it but it just doesn’t. I only had it on for about an hour before I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what I want out of spf and that was not it.

I will be returning this, which is a bummer because I already had to exchange the one I bought previously because it was expired.