Review: Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Tinted Face Sunscreen Lotion (Fair-Light)

I picked up Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Tinted Face Sunscreen Lotion in Fair-Light. I’ve been hearing about this sunscreen for so many years. I thought, maybe I should just try it out. What put me off from trying this sunscreen out in the first place is that it contains red algae (Porphyra Umbilicalis Extract). And my experience with algae in general in skin care products have not been good. It clogs my pores. But, anything can clog anyone’s pores. It really depends on how the person’s skin reacts to the ingredients/overall formulation of the product. So, I’ve read so many reviews raving about this product! Am I missing out on something?? Hmmm! Now, here I am, with a tube of this stuff. Here are my thoughts on it!

My Experience with Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Tinted Face Sunscreen Lotion!

Texture & Application

The texture of this sunscreen is a mousse-cream. It’s a very different type of texture and consistency that I didn’t expect from a bb cream/tinted lotion. It’s soft, lightweight, and souffle-like. It glides over the skin very easily and smoothly. It was very easy to use this product. Very easy to blend into the skin without tugging at the skin. I didn’t have any problems with application. It was a simple process that didn’t take a lot of time. I loved using it around my eyes. It didn’t burn my eyes. But, the sunscreen looks a little greasy and shiny upon application at first. I used the required amount for sunscreen too, which is a lot of product. After about 30 minutes, the product looked matte on the skin. The next 15 more minutes, my skin looked even more matte. It is truly a matte sunscreen as it states on the bottle (matte finish).

Fragrance-Free?

The product is fragrance-free, but it does have smell to it. When I first opened it and sniffed it, I thought it smelled like tanning lotion. After smelling it again just now, it smells like plant extracts. Maybe a combo of both? I’m not too fond of the scent, but it didn’t bother me too much.

Shade (Fair-Light Skin Tones)

I wasn’t impressed with the shade of this product. It says it’s for fair to light skin tones. The color of this product is literally orange when dispensed from the tube. On my skin, it was orange if I used too much. 🍊😂 I didn’t like that at all. 👎🏻 If I use it as a makeup product rather than my main sunscreen, it works out pretty well. It doesn’t turn my skin extremely orange, but there is an orange tint to the skin. That tint eventually fades away a little bit, so it wasn’t too bad. There is no coverage. It seems to work very well as a makeup primer. It seems to coat my eyelashes too. Eyelash primer as well? lol. So this product works out if you’re searching for a mineral sunscreen that is tinted (no white cast). I actually used it on top of my mineral sunscreen (that gives a white cast) to eliminate the white cast. Worked very well. Cast begone! 👋🏻

Great for oily skin!

Since the sunscreen is matte, it works amazingly on oily skin. I have very oily skin, and this sunscreen was perfect on my skin when it comes to taming excess oil. It makes my face appear very clean compared to the dewy, oily look, haha. If you have dry skin, you might want to apply a good moisturizer underneath. This sunscreen is definitely aimed towards people with oily skin. I’m not saying it won’t work for dry skin. It’s truly a matte lotion sunscreen. I didn’t think it was drying at all on my skin.

It stays in place.

Most sunscreens swish around my face when I reapply. That might be the reason why I was developing more freckles! When I went in for a reapplication, I can feel that this sunscreen did not shift at all on my face. It stayed in place. Reapplying was not a pleasant experience since it felt like I was applying on top of more product. The sunscreen feels lightweight when applying, but it leaves a layer, film of product on the skin. I can feel that there’s product sitting on my skin. It’s quite annoying.

Breakouts? Clogged pores?

I was dreading using this sunscreen on my face because of the red algae. The other ingredient, shea butter, is a hit or miss on my skin. I thought this sunscreen was a tad too rich on my skin, which is odd because I thought it would be drying (from the reviews I’ve read). It leaves a sticky residue on my skin and just feels too moisturizing. I noticed closed comedones, some blackheads, and milia in my breakout-prone areas. That’s when I stopped using it. Could it be the red algae? Shea butter? Who knows. My skin didn’t like it. It feels very occlusive on the skin, especially when reapplied. By the way, I started noticing breakouts by day 2, but I didn’t stop by day 3. By day 3, it became more obvious that my pores were getting clogged.

How to remove.

This is one of the most difficult sunscreen products to remove from the skin. It does not come off by simply cleansing with a face wash. To remove this product, oil cleanse (leave on for a few minutes) and wash with a facial cleanser. I do have a facial brush too to help remove the sunscreen off of the skin. If the product does not budge, oil cleanse, oil cleanse, oil cleanse some more. Just make sure the sunscreen is all off. If you do not remove the sunscreen off properly, you’ll in up with residue on your face, which can lead to clogged pores. I removed the sunscreen off properly and made sure my skin was squeaky clean, so my breakouts were from the ingredients in the product. It’s not compatible with my skin type.

Final Thoughts

I was so excited to try this sunscreen out. It’s affordable, comes in a 3 fl. oz. tube, has SPF 50, and it’s a mineral sunscreen (4% Zinc Oxide, 4% Titanium Dioxide). The smell of the product isn’t too bad. I got used to it after a few uses. The shade of the product could be better. I wish it wasn’t orange. 😂 Fair to light isn’t fair to light. I could see the drastic difference in my skin color when using this sunscreen. Too bad that it clogged my pores too. I wished my skin didn’t react the way it did, but it did. *sigh* I wanted it to work. It would’ve work well for outdoor workouts, hikes, pool days, and going to the beach. It sticks to the skin like crazy. If you want a sunscreen that stays on your skin, this will do it. For everyday use? It’s not for my skin type. Like I said before, it feels too heavy, sticky on the skin. It’s weird because the sunscreen feels lightweight when applied to the skin. After a few hours, it takes on this sticky texture, film that I dislike. I don’t like it and my skin doesn’t like it. It gets in my hair. It’s difficult to remove. The breakouts killed it for me. All in all, I won’t repurchase. This sunscreen has been hyped up so much that I thought it would be amazing. It’s a nope for me.

What Australian Gold Botanical SPF 50 Tinted Face Sunscreen Lotion in Fair-Light looks like:

It looks more orange in person. It has a whipped-mousse texture to it.

This sunscreen was sealed when I purchased it. 👌🏻

Today I’m Trying Out Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue Tinted Hydrating Gel Cream SPF 30!!

I’ve had this tinted moisturizer for a while. It’s the Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue Tinted Hydrating Gel Cream SPF 30. I was looking for a new bb cream to try when I first picked it up. I know, it’s not a bb cream. It’s a tinted moisturizer. I feel like bb creams and tinted moisturizers can overlap sometimes. They are pretty similar from my experience. It really depends on the product itself. First, here’s more about Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue Tinted Hydrating Gel Cream SPF 30!

This product contains skincare benefits infused with naturally radiant color in one easy step. It’s lightweight, multi-tasking, skin-quenching, smooths on effortlessly with just the right amount of coverage. Sheer-to-medium coverage. It reveals dewy, healthy-looking glow to the skin instantly. Marine botanicals help hydrate and replenish thirsty skin. Antioxidants help to defend skin’s appearance against environmental stressors.

Contains non-chemical broad spectrum SPF 30. Clinically tested. Dermatologist tested. Hypoallergenic. No oils, silicones, parabens, fragrance.

By looking at the benefits of this product, it seems like something I would like. I think that’s why I purchased it in the first place. It had good reviews on it too. Now after trying the product out, here are my thoughts!

My Experience With Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue Tinted Hydrating Gel Cream Spf 30 for the First Time!

This is a gel-cream tinted moisturizer. It comes in a 1.18 fl. oz. (35 mL) tube. The product feels soft, gel-like, and creamy. I have the shade Opal 01 (for very fair cool skin with a pink hue). That’s what it says on their website. It’s the lightest shade of the twenty shades that are available, so they do have quite a good selection of shades to choose from for all skin tones. Awesome! From my experience, tinted moisturizers don’t provide the skin much color, so I just chose the lightest shade, and it seems to be working just fine. The shade blends and adjusts to my natural skin tone after a few minutes. Shade-wise, it’s good to go, and I’m on the pale side of the spectrum. Sometimes I can use foundation with cool undertones. This tinted moisturizer glides on the skin nicely and blends into the skin well. It isn’t streaky and doesn’t leave the skin looking made up. It definitely falls under the more natural-looking side.

One thing that I noticed while wearing this tinted moisturizer is that it tends to grab onto dry skin, so make sure to moisturize beforehand. Yeah, there goes the skin-quenching and replenishing thirsty skin claims. I didn’t think it was that moisturizing on my skin. A good moisturizer underneath this tinted moisturizer is a must! Since it wasn’t too moisturizing, it seemed to work great on my oily skin. It helped to absorbed excess sebum. Along with that, yep, accentuates dry skin at the same time. It didn’t make my skin feel or look greasy. It feels very lightweight for daily use. As I mentioned before, it looks very natural on the skin. A little too natural for me. lol. I prefer to have a little bit more coverage when wearing any kind of face makeup/foundation. Medium coverage? More like light-medium but leaning towards light. It looks sheer once it settles in. It didn’t help cover any acne scars or dark under eye circles. But maybe I just have it worse. haha.

This is what the product looks like…

I tried using this tinted moisturizer alone, but I didn’t like the results. It just didn’t cover all of the imperfections that I didn’t want to see (haha!). I thought it was a little too drying even with a moisturizer too. But when I did use the tinted moisturizer alone before applying other makeup products on top, it gave me a nice subtle dewy glow to my skin. It’s weird how a product can make the skin feel dry but make the skin look all smooth, glossy, and glowy all at the same time. This is one of those products.

So I stopped using this tinted moisturizer at one point because I didn’t like the way it looked on my skin. This was when I had really bad acne. It accentuated every single little flaw on my face and felt really gross on the skin. I don’t recommend it if you have bad skin. It’ll just make you feel bad about the condition of your skin. Just wait until your skin clears up to try it out if you want. Me, I think it’s an ok tinted moisturizer so far. I didn’t notice any breakouts after using it, which is odd when it contains ingredients that my skin usually don’t like or causes me skin issues.

As for SPF, it contains SPF 30 (6.2% Titanium Dioxide). It is a mineral sunscreen. No wonder why it dried my skin out and accentuated flaky skin. Mineral sunscreens tend to do that to me. If that happens to you too, be aware of that. After trying it again, I wasn’t too impressed, but I don’t dislike the product. I just don’t think it’s the right product for my skin. I need more coverage, and I’m not liking how it accentuates dry skin. Maybe I’ll try it again in the summer when it’s warmer and when my face is ten times more oily.

I hoped this review helped! Have a nice day! 🙂

Click here for more reviews on bb creams and tinted moisturizers!