Holiday Preparation - Sun Protection with Piz Buin

I'm a terribly delicate little flower you know, I bruise like a peach, and in the sun, I wilt and then prickle madly.  All joking aside, sun protection for all-over is an area where I struggle somewhat.  It's a good job I don't take exotic holidays all that often!

As I may have mentioned yesterday,  next week I'm off to Portugal for a fortnight, and, having spent our last holiday there in a prickly heat-haze, this year I'm taking no chances, I'm packing these:

Now, I'm normally a lazy mare, and I usually opt for the kind of sun care that you apply once for all-day sun protection, but I now believe that a lot of these formulations are far too heavy for sun-delicate skin, and I'm convinced that part of my problem on my last summer holiday was caused by blocked pores on my calves which lead to the incessant itching.  I discovered the Piz Buin Sun Allergy range towards the end of the holiday - at a whopping cost of 26 euro a bottle!  But, I'd been driven so crazy by itching at this point,  that I gladly paid the price.  It's a more reasonable (but still eye-watering) cost of around £17 a bottle back in the UK, but I got these on buy one get one free from Boots.  £8.50 a bottle doesn't hurt so much somehow.  I'm happy to see that Piz have added a spray top to these bottles this year, which will make them so much easier to use.

Last time I used them, I noticed that there was a definite difference between this and the all-day lotion I'd been using previously.  Whilst the itching didn't end overnight (it took another discovery for that - see below) but my skin definitely felt soothed from the first application, and I was glad to have found it.  I'm taking two bottles of each in factors 30 and 15 for the body, and a tube of factor 30 for my face.  I don't want to come home entirely the same colour I was when I left!  MrLippie will be using the same, just in the non-allergy version.  If I can track down some of the factor 8 down before we go, I'll be getting some of that too ...

I've also invested in a tube of this:

No idea what it's like at the moment, but I'll keep you posted!  I'm hoping that by using sun protection for sensitive skin in the first place that I'll avoid any prickly heat problems entirely, but in case I don't, I'm also packing these:

Yup, that's my prickly heat kit: Zirtek antihistamines (the only antihistamines I've found that work on sun allergies - between these and the Piz Buin, it's what saved my holiday last time), a massive bottle of aloe vera gel, and two cans of Magicool prickly heat spray.  I like Magicool anyway - there is very little more refreshing on a hot day - and I'm hoping against hope I won't need to use these, but I'll have them there just in case ... Last time, my major defence was lightly damp face cloths which we kept in a plastic bag in the apartment freezer!  I just wrapped those around the affected areas and it was just instant relief!  Not sure what the maids thought we were doing with them though ...


How do you prepare for your holidays?


The Fine Print: I bought all of the stuff you see in this post, but further samples - and images - have been provided by Piz Buin, for which I'm deeply grateful. They're a great bunch of lads.

This post originated at: http://getlippie.com All rights reserved.