Why sheer zinc powder?  Well zinc is a lovely, wonderful ingredient- it's really nice to have on your skin. I like the way it feels, and I like that it seems to calm down my redness.   I like having a lot of zinc on my skin, but dont' always feel the need to have the amount of coverage that it provides, so I made a sheer zinc oxide powder.  Yes, it's also an active ingredient in a lot of sunscreens in fact, but I assure you that's merely a coincidence.  

This is 25% Z-cote extra sheer micronized zinc oxide with a particle size of .2 microns , and 25% micronized titanium dioxide with a median size of .2 microns.  They're both pretty sheer, but the particle size is actually considered very large in terms of very tiny things- they're still too big to be absorbed by your skin.   Normally we don't use micronized anything, but I made an exception for just this one product because I wanted it to be as sheer as I could make it- so that I could share it with my friends when we go to the beach.  It's still whitening- I find that I can wear it by itself, but you may want to tint it with some of your foundation base, or even cut it with a little Perfecting Powder or Blur.

You get 1 tablespoon in a 30-gram jar. Samples are 1/4 teaspoon in a 5-gram jar.

Ingredients:  Mica and magnesium myrsistate, zinc oxide, titanium dioxide

I'm not not not saying this will give you any sun protection.  There is no SPF number- it's not something that you can calculate without getting it tested because there are a lot of little things that can effect the rating, and it's not something you can figure out with a simple math problem.  This hasn't been formally tested and it won't be formally tested.  In no way am I suggesting that you should you switch from any other formally tested, FDA approved sun protection product in order to use this- really, I'm not kidding.  The only reason we're offering this is because I do just  like the feeling zinc oxide on my skin, but don't always need the coverage that it provides. 

For those of you who are interested in a 100% natural broad spectrum sun screen please check out this article on Wikipedia . The FDA hasn't updated their regulations for sunscreens in decades and a lot of our knowledge about the sun has changed in that time.  It really pays to be a smart consumer with sunscreens.  The wikipedia article explains a lot...like why you can wear an SPF 30 sunscreen but still get freckles.  It's because the FDA only requires manufacturers to test for redness- which is caused by UVB.  Freckles, photoaging and most cases of skin cancer are caused by UVA, and that's where most sun screens fail.  There are only 3 active ingredients that are approved by the FDA that provide full spectrum coverage- avobenzone, which tends to break down in the presence of sunlight (it can be stabilized by other active ingredients), zinc oxide, and a propriatary compound made by L'Oreal.  They also think that titanium dioxide has some UVA coverage as well.