sunscreen for indoor outdoor wedding

January 19, 2016 11:31 AM

i'm getting married around 6PM in april. the wedding is supposed to be outside (that's the plan, if we don't get rain). the reception will follow inside and we have the space till midnight. i'm a really pale person and i wear sunscreen every day, but i want to avoid crazy flashback for the indoor photos. should i skip sunscreen for the day? it'll be late, and i doubt i'll get a bad burn. if i do wear sunscreen, does anyone have a recommendation for something that will give me reduced flashback? thank you. : )
posted by mermaiden to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (12 answers total)

Best answer: There are not a lot of places where 6pm exposure will get you a sunburn. Maybe the true tropics.

I would definitely skip the sunscreen. You'll have some makeup on, anyway.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:37 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: April where in the world? Caribbean vs New England would make a huge difference, for example.

I'd readily skip the sunscreen for that night, though. I don't burn and therefore am bad bad bad about applying it, but I can't imagine limited exposure to the late afternoon sun in April being much of a problem in the continental US, for example.
posted by lydhre at 11:39 AM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Biore Watery Essence is my favorite daily/light sunscreen (I have sensitive skin and breakout at even the slightest provocation, so it's hard to find something I like) and has a lightweight, matte finish with very little whitecast. I can hardly tell its on, unlike with other sunscreens that always seem to make themselves known. While I don't have the experience of wearing it under pro photo lights, you can read reviews of it here which may have more details on that front.
posted by phunniemee at 11:39 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: thanks for your responses! and, apologies for not including a location. it's in the bay area, in the east bay, so we'll be getting the sunset, but i think you guys are right--i can probably skip it for a day, and be ok. : )
posted by mermaiden at 11:53 AM on January 19, 2016

Best answer: Is your sunscreen chemical or physical? Chemical sunscreens work by absorbing sunlight while physical filters work by deflecting it. Unfortunately they also deflect flash bulbs and that's what gives the flashback effect. If you are using a pure chemical sunscreen, you shouldn't have to worry about flashback from the sunscreen active itself.

That said, there are other ingredients that can deflect light and create a flashback effect (silica powder is notorious for this) and even some amount of the physical sunscreen actives (TiO2 and ZnO) may be present in makeup that isn't labeled as having SPF. So just avoiding your usual sunscreen doesn't necessarily avoid the problem. The best way to be sure is to do a trial run with the makeup you plan to wear and take test shots under direct and bounced flash to see how it photographs.
posted by mama casserole at 11:55 AM on January 19, 2016

Best answer: Lots of foundations have SPF.
Better yet you could put on a tinted moisurizer with SPF like Laura Mercier and put all of your bridal makeup on over it.
The Laura Mercier is very sheer and I think it would work really well.
posted by littlewater at 11:57 AM on January 19, 2016

Best answer: I was going to suggest a tinted moisturizer like Laura Mercier as well. That line uses chemical sunscreen if I remember correctly, which may be better for the pictures too. Congrats!
posted by JenMarie at 12:01 PM on January 19, 2016

Best answer: Can you do a test run with your photographer to see how your make-up will show up under their lights?
posted by calgirl at 12:03 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Will you be shaded for the ceremony itself? Maybe check that.
posted by amtho at 12:04 PM on January 19, 2016

Best answer: I was curious, so I ran the numbers through the NOAA's Solar Elevation Calculator. At 6 PM on April 30th in San Francisco, the sun will be a little over 10° above the horizon. (For comparison, it'll be about the same elevation above the horizon at about 4:15 today.) For any date earlier in the month of April, it'll be even closer to the horizon than that. If you have any significant obstacles at all to the west (trees, buildings, hills), they may well end up shading your ceremony.

If you really want to check on this, you could conceivably figure out the location of the sun for your precise date and location using the calculator above, and then go to the site and see what it would look like on the day. The angle of the sun above the horizon is given by "elevation" by that calculator (0° = on the horizon, 90° = directly overhead); the direction the sun is in is given by the "azimuth" angle (180° = due south, 270° = due west, 360° = due north.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:09 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: THANK YOU, everyone!!! this is a huge help. : )
posted by mermaiden at 1:01 PM on January 19, 2016

A Practical Wedding had a whole article about this exact issue, testing various makeups with SPF to see how they performed under flash. They make some good recommendations at various price points.

They also made the point that honestly, a professional photographer will likely avoid direct on-camera flash anyway, thus avoiding flashback. I'm married to a photographer and have seen him shoot receptions/events in low-light situations where he needs to use lighting; when he uses a flash, he typically holds the flash unit away from the camera so that the light doesn't all bounce back directly into the camera. He haaaates on-camera flash for a number of reasons (not just flashback). I don't think I've ever actually seen him use it, and I've seen him shoot a lot.

Talk to your photographer about this issue and if you're really worried, do some tests.
posted by snowmentality at 4:44 AM on January 22, 2016