During my trip to Japan last fall, I tried to keep an eye out for the most popular cosmetics (specifically, I was mainly interested in face masks and sunscreens). Biore UV Aqua Rich Water Essence was definitely one of the most commonly spotted products on many shelves, so it seems like it’s pretty popular.

It’s 2019, but I’m still slowly working my way through the sunscreens in Sephora’s Sun Safety Kit 2018. My goal is to try them all before the 2019 kit comes out (I’m guessing sometime in April-ish?). The brightest (peppiest) option included in the kit was definitely Clinique Pep-Start Hydrorush Moisturizer SPF 20. It comes in a tiny, bright yellow squeeze tube, which makes it look like sunshine in a bottle.

Sometimes I marvel at how far humans have come from the days of putting leeches on our skin as a form of medicine. I feel so lucky to live in a world that offers many types of sunscreen—not just chemical and physical, but also tinted sunscreen and even sunscreen that’s designed to provide a cooling sensation. The latest innovation I spotted in the drugstore was “dry” sunscreen—not “dry” in the sense that it’s actually a powder, but sunscreen that doesn’t…