SunBlock for this Summer!

I’m a beauty editor and if there’s one thing I love about my job, it’s testing new products before they hit the store shelves. This preview gives me the chance to make sure a product works before people ask me about it.

This summer, I received a whole load of sun protection products but for some reason, there was one new product that I didn’t get to try out before its retail launch—Beach Hut’s Clear Spray Sunblock. I missed their press launch because I had a shoot that day and didn’t pay much attention to it. Then, I noticed it making an appearance on store shelves…I never had a chance to buy a bottle to test it myself because it kept skipping my mind.

It was only until I went to Boracay in May that I finally had a chance to test it. I was booked in a new resort at Station 1 called Zuzuni. It’s a free Wi-Fi mini-boutique resort with only four rooms and a small restaurant at the ground level but this place really packs in the class. First of all, the restaurant is Greek (yum!) and run by Geni Psinakis, the owner of Mati in Powerplant Mall. For a foodie like me, I have to say the food was excellent. Because it only had a soft opening, the restaurant’s menu was not so extensive, BUT that didn’t matter. Every bite we had (the Mati salad, the baked cheese with lemon, the seafood pasta, the spicy feta dip and hummus with warm pita triangles, and the to-die-for spanakopitas…) was deliciously unforgettable. I think the breezy ambiance helped a lot too.

Second, the rooms are so well-appointed, they look like model units at Rockwell (classic neutral colors, flat screen TVs, luxury linens, teak furniture at the veranda…) But they really stole my heart when I saw the giveaways on my bed when I entered the room upon check-in. Far from the pitifully standard tiny soap and obviously refilled shampoo and lotion bottles, a ceramic bowl was set on the middle of the bed, with a card that said “We have chosen our favorite products for our guests…” and it was filled a collections of beauty products from some of my favorite brands: Keratase, L’Oreal, Essences…and Beach Hut! There, in the middle of the VIP giveaways, was a spray bottle of the elusive Beach Hut product. Finally.

After one day using it at the beach, I was a convert. I put away all the other sun protection products I brought with me and used that free bottle for the next three days—on me, on my kids, and my husband. The thing I loved about it was that it was a clear spray-on, very similar to Dermatologica’s Solar Spray, a product I fell in love with last summer and still swear by.

Now that summer is over, I put away what’s left of that free bottle, but I plan to bring it out again next beach season this coming November. In the meantime, I’m telling everyone about my new find, and going out to buy myself my own new bottle.