It was kind of a strange week at work. I hit both extremes of the employee experience (well, not quite; I didn’t get fired) in that early in the week I was in conflict with my boss over not one but two issues, but had some really good experiences later on. It was very uncomfortable to have the conflicts, and I started to wonder if I was simply a square peg in a round hole at this company and if I should leave my job and, you know, play the guitar all day until my savings run out.
In the course of that, my team lead sent our manager a critical email about me, or meant to. She accidentally sent it straight to me. I like this person and thought she liked me, so I was a little startled, but it’s not like I’ve never made a critical remark about Person A to Person B, so I couldn’t really get too worked up. (Besides, if I may be a bit cynical, it improved my latitude on the moral high ground.) I replied politely, saying, “I believe you meant this for [our boss]?” I copied our boss, since she was the team lead's intended recipient, and also seized the opportunity to work in a couple more of my talking points.
In the end, we got that issue resolved satisfactorily—my boss is quite a reasonable person, and she is also careful about how she talks to and about people—and I haven’t heard a word about the other, regarding which I sent two or three very frank emails (on the theory that the truth will set you free; if you say exactly what you think and get fired, it probably wasn’t the right job for you to begin with). Emily told me that I’m not the only person disturbed about this issue, so I believe my boss is thinking the whole thing over and will come forth with a policy statement soon.
At the end of the week, I got favorable mention from someone outside our group, and another woman outside our group showered me with fabulous compliments (concluding with "You're tops in my book!"), which I sent on to my boss, so I started the week feeling like I was in the doghouse, but by Friday, I was on top of the world.
I received a call from my mother midweek about a computer problem and hastened to call her back. I left a message saying approximately this:
“This is Linda Atkins in tech support. I have received your call about your computer-related problem. I understand you formerly had a file, but no longer seem to have it. I hope this will help. I’m going to read you the ingredients in Mexitan sunscreen, SPF 30: six percent titanium dioxide and six percent zinc oxide, deionized water, sunflower oil, lecithin, coconut oil, glycerine, xanthan gum, green tea extract, jojoba oil, vitamin E, vitamin A, shea butter and eucalyptus oil.”
The findings of the Environmental Working Group are that you should use a sunscreen whose active ingredient is titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide; therefore, it seems to me the basic idea is to find some kind of glop that will cause those ingredients to adhere firmly to your skin but that doesn’t inflame your allergies and/or skin condition, should you have the proverbial “sensitive skin,” as do I.
It further seems to me you can’t beat the ingredients in Mexitan’s particular glop. I have another sunscreen on hand containing one of the desirable active ingredients, but glop made out of dipolyhydroxystearate, polyaminopropyl biguanide, cyclomeythicone and the like.
I tried this one, too, as it also has a high rating from the EWG, but, intuitively, which would you rather put on your face, green tea and coconut oil, or polyaminopropyl biguanide? Although if the latter is indeed juice squeezed from the rare bisexual iguana, as the name suggests, it might be a fine natural substance, but then you have your iguana rights issue to consider—your face dripping with iguana juice while livid protesters picket outside your apartment, people screaming into bullhorns, etc.
A friend told me she likes Ti-Silc, which she gets from Kaiser, so she may not be aware it costs $25 for four ounces. She is going to bring me a bit to try (suggesting she does not in fact know how much it costs, because if I had something that cost $25 for four ounces, I probably wouldn't dispense it freely), which is super nice of her, but I’m kind of hoping I don’t like it.
So, Mexitan. Not particularly expensive and smells very nice when it comes out of the plastic bottle, due to the eucalyptus oil, but the scent disappears rapidly, leaving pretty much no smell beyond a faint hint of metal, which I guess you can hardly get away from, given the active ingredients.
My experience with other metal oxide sunscreens is that they are thick and greasy and turn your face a sickly pink or white, as if “lifeguard nose” has marched all the way out to the edges of your face. However, while the three metal oxide sunscreens I’ve tried lately all went on initially white or pink, they all sank in and became transparent, or nearly so, after a bit.
As for greasy, Mexitan is the opposite. It dries in seconds; in fact, it was challenging to get it all rubbed in before it dried. It kind of formed flakes, so I emailed the friendly folks at Mexitan to see if they had any application tips. They said you don’t have to use much, and that if it’s too dry, adding a bit of oil to thin it is not a bad idea.
I was surprised to find the Mexitan could not be removed with soap and water alone, even though it seemed much less substantial than the sunscreen I tried last week. But jojoba oil on a cotton ball took it off nicely, no scrubbing with a washcloth required.
Having said all of that, it definitely is a more major enterprise to use these recommended sunscreens, and you have much more of a sense of there being something smeared on your face, so I’m kind of thinking of just sticking with my chemical sunscreen, even though the Environmental Working Group doesn't think it's very good, due to hormones that can seep in through your skin.
I currently use Zia Face SPF 30 (plus a big hat), and Lily of the Desert Skinsaving Sunblock SPF 30+. The latter is not on the EWG’s list at all, but its ingredients are similar to those in the Zia sunscreen.
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