If we had a dollar for every ineffective, ill-informed, or downright dangerous skincare trend to hit the social media algorithms, we’d have a lot of dollars. But as summer draws closer in the Northern Hemisphere, we want to turn our attention to one particular viral skincare trend that’s a combination of all three. It’s called sunscreen contouring. It isn’t new. It’s made the rounds every summer for a few years running. Now it’s resurfaced on beauty creators’ radars.
It’s still, as ever, a bad idea.
What is sunscreen contouring?
As you might have guessed from the name, sunscreen contouring is the practice of strategically applying sunscreen so that some parts of the face or body get tanned while other parts stay protected and pale.
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The idea is to apply sunscreen everywhere except where you would normally apply contour. Generally, that would mean under the cheekbones, down either side of the nose, and perhaps underneath the chin and jaw. Theoretically, as these areas darken from sun exposure, they’ll create a “naturally” contoured look.
Don’t do it.
Why this viral skincare hack is ineffective
If executed correctly, the “contour” created by selectively tanning parts of the face won’t even look right.
There’s a reason contour powder and bronzer are separate products. Contour powders mimic the look of shadows cast on the face. They generally run cool and gray in tone. Bronzers mimic the look of suntanned skin. For that reason, they generally run more golden and, well, bronze. If you selectively tan parts of your face, all that will end up happening is you’ll look like you contoured with bronzer.
Image: Alena Darmel
That’s even if you get it to work correctly in the first place. It isn’t easy to apply sunscreen evenly to the face. Without even coverage, you won’t get predictably even results. Applying a thick enough layer of sunscreen to noticeably block tanning in some zones without the sunscreen shifting around is quite the challenge. That’s before you even get into blending it out at the edges well enough to imitate the look of seamlessly blended contour. It’s just not going to work out the way the heavily filtered Tiktoks and Reels promise it will.
Why this viral skincare hack is ill-informed
To get into the nitty gritty of why sunscreen contouring is ill-informed, we have to take a step back and understand the mechanics of a suntan.
As most of us know, sun damage causes tanning. Put very simply, when exposed to UV radiation, skin produces melanin as a defensive mechanism. The melanin, which darkens skin, helps to protect skin from sunburns. Some people produce more melanin, and produce it more readily, than others. This generally makes them less susceptible to sunburns than those whose skin does not produce much melanin.
Here’s the rub. While all wavelengths of UV radiation can trigger tanning, UVA is generally considered most responsible for pigment darkening due to sun exposure. So if you want to contour with sunscreen, you need a sunscreen with very high protection against UVA specifically.
Most typical drugstore sunscreens in the US won’t even deliver enough UVA filtering to prevent tanning as drastically as the technique requires. While we’re sure at least one exists, we’ve yet to see any advocates of this technique using the high UVA protection Asian or European sunscreens that might actually do the trick.
That’s not even getting into the fact that UV exposure is the single greatest contributor to preventable visible skin aging.
Why this viral skincare hack is dangerous
In the simplest terms: UV exposure increases your cancer risk. And skin cancer can be deadly.
It’s not worth it. If you love the contoured look, splurge on your favorite contour palette. And apply it over a full face of sunscreen!
