Fantasy beauty product – one that moisturizes, protects, provides coverage and anti-aging benefits, and even lends some skin clearing action. Well hold onto your knickers, this baby is a reality. Check out our best BB creams for summer skin.

BB creams. You’ve heard of them, seen actresses pushing them on TV, flipped past pages of them in magazines. But what the heck are they? And do you need one this summer?

BB stands for beauty balm and it looks like a tinted facial moisturizer. Oh, but it is so much more. BB creams offer lightweight hydration with more coverage than most tinted moisturizers, and also includes sun protection and a touch of antioxidant action. Poof! Dream come true.

Because light hydration is totally where it’s at for summer, multitasking beauty products are hot weather staples. And BB creams definitely fall into this category. Super easy to apply and practically weightless. Skin perfection on the fly.

Now imagine all this, only with natural ingredients. Healthy plant oils, pure mineral color and protection, and natural antioxidants make BB creams even more powerful. You get your flawless complexion while fighting blemishes and wrinkles too. And because they are feather weight, don’t melt or smear like heavier foundations.

So kick your heavy foundations and concealers to the curb for summer, and try a natural BB cream. You won’t be sorry.

4 Best BB Creams to Try for Summer Skin

1. Lavera Organic BB Cream

For every skin type, especially those with sensitive skin. Antioxidants protect, while calming ingredients even out skin tone and calm redness. The matte formula smooths imperfections and refines pores.

2. Haut Cosmetics BB Cream

This brush on BB cream is such the multitasker. It primes, hydrates, brightens and evens skin tone, and provides water resistant sun protection. Antimicrobial organic coconut oil helps to prevent breakouts. Choose from three natural shades.

3. Juice Beauty SPF 30 Tinted Mineral Moisturizer

Zinc SPF protection and mineral tint make this product effective. Fruit acids keep skin clear and bright. This lightly hydrating moisturizer is perfect for all skin types. Choose from four tones.

4. La Mav BB Creme

This Certified Organic BB crème offers matte finish for all skin types. Rosehip oil helps to diminish age spots and sun damage, and rosemary zaps blemishes. Kakadu Plum holds anti-aging benefits.

Related on EcoSalon

Can You Fight Sunspots Naturally?

Natural SPF Oils: Do They Provide Real UV Protection ?

3 Anti-Aging Skin Care Tricks to Protect You From the Number One Skin Ager

Image of girls in summer with perfect skin via Shutterstock

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Sunspots are to maturing women what acne is to hormonal teenagers.

In other words, they both turn into raging bull’s eyes when their owners look into a mirror. From the fairest to the darkest skin types, we all share in their, ahem, joy. Sunspots can be treated by chemical peels, laser or freezing treatments, and prescription creams—none of which sounds appealing to a person who has occasionally grown roots reading ingredients labels in the product aisle. The good news is that sunspots can be treated naturally. But do natural treatments for sunspots really work?

Let’s take a look at the deets. Sunspots are areas on your skin caused by excessive melanin, or the pigment that makes your skin dark. In some case, a lack of melanin can cause white sunspots. White marks are often caused by a reaction to sunburn or a skin fungus. What’s consistent about light or dark? They always stand out as a different shade than the rest of our skin.

Sunspots can be caused by a myriad of reasons, but the main culprit is that star in the sky that beats down on you. Overexposure to UV rays (from the sun or tanning beds) is the primary cause for sunspots. In layman terms, it is kind of like tanning gone haywire. Complicating the manner is the fact that, as we age, our skin loses its ability to disperse the melanin. And yes, you should always have them monitored by your dermatologist.

The best ways to avoid sunspots are to stay out of the sun and make best friends with your sunscreen. But while sunscreen can prevent sunspots from worsening, they can’t turn back the clock for the one we’re already carrying. (This is me, thinking of some epic childhood sunburns.) So this leaves some of us contemplating a chemical peel or the application of skin-lightning hydroquinone under the darkest of nights whilst hiding in a closet.

If you feel like your hatred of sunspots is clashing with your love of safe ingredients like a Brad Pitt-helmed blockbuster starring the undead, don’t despair. There are options to combat sunspots naturally.

The most recommended skin lighteners out there are products that naturally exfoliate your skin. Lemon juice, applied twice a day, is the old stand-by treatment. (Though lemon makes your skin sensitive, so for the love of Pete, cover your skin in the sun.) Another illustrious blogger offers up a mix of equal parts orange juice and apple cider to be rubbed dialed onto your sunspots for several weeks. The lactic acids in milk, buttermilk, and yogurt, all applied daily to the skin, are another solution. In fact, the natural sunspot treatments out there read like a grocery list, including onions, garlic, papaya, castor oil and more.

But, again, do these natural treatments really work?

I’m going to be honest, fellow EcoSalonista. I have one particular sunspot on my face that I have been battling for years. I’ve tried the lemon juice treatment for a week. I’ve slapped yogurt onto my face for several nights. Should I have continued these treatments, they might have worked. But the difference was so impenetrable to the naked eye that I eventually gave up.

If you have the patience to turn your face into a fruit cocktail every night, you are seriously my hero and a naturalista rock star. But if, like me, you want results yesterday, you might have to resign yourself to either living with slowly-fading sunspots or consider more aggressive treatments.

Or, you could cover your sunspots with this fantastic, safe product that work like a charm.

A recent trend exploding all over the faces of women across the globe is BB cream, otherwise known as Beauty Balm to us Westerners, blemish balm elsewhere, and even beblesh balm in South Korean, thanks to a trademark on the word “blemish.” This all-purpose cosmetic acts as a moisturizer, serum, sunblock and foundation all in one. And best of all? It’s a killer cover-up for sunspots.

COOLA is currently formulating a fantastic BB cream via their Face SPF 30 Unscented Mineral Sunscreen, Matte Tint. ($36.00). Providing a broad spectrum SPF 30, this lightly-tinted sunscreen works on all skin tone, giving an even coverage. It’s made with certified organic ingredients and rates a moderately-safe score from Skin Deep.

How about you? Have you ever found a natural treatment for sunspots that has worked for you?

FTC Compliance

photo credit: little.light via photopin cc

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BB cream.  You’re not entirely sure you know what it is, but based on the buzz in beautyland, you’re pretty sure you need it. 

From all the raving about it, you’d think it was a miracle in a tube. Is it glorified foundation?  Tinted sunscreen?  A little of both actually, and then some.  The ‘BB’ stands for beauty balm, and really, it is a pretty great multi-tasking tool to have in your cosmetics bag when you find one that works that’s also not jam-packed with junk.

A good BB cream will prime the skin, moisturize, and provide the desired amount of pigmented coverage in a color complimentary to your skin tone. It will also contain a natural sun protection factor and provide skin with some repairing and anti-aging benefits while you’re wearing it. It sound too good to be true, right?  Well, there are several BB creams out there, hundreds in fact, but very few that are healthy and perform well.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Suntegrity’s “5 In 1” Natural Moisturizing Face Sunscreen, Broad Spectrum SPF 30.  It provides my sensitive, combination skin the perfect blend of moisture and warm, sheer color to help even out my skin tone without acting like a foundation. And the antioxidant benefits from red algae and certified organic aloe vera, jojoba, sunflower, pomegranate, cucumber, and green tea, along with nano-particle free zinc oxide, all help to reduce UV damage and aid in skin repair. I’ve never broken out from it, the scent is mild and the SPF is high enough to keep me well protected from damaging UV rays.  It also very kindly does not pile up in the “life full of laughter” lines under my eyes.

I’m also a fan of Juice Beauty’s new Stem Cellular Repair CC Cream. Described as a “12-in-1 ultimate color correcting cream,” it boasts a long list of benefits to the skin, helps even skin tone with a cooler pigment tone, has a nice texture, provides SPF 30 protection and a cocktail of beneficial ingredients, including the Juice Beauty proprietary fruit stem cells with clinically demonstrated anti-aging benefits. Both the Suntegrity and Juice Beauty options are more similar to a tinted moisturizer with SPF than a full coverage foundation, which works well for those of us seeking to even out skin tone and protect our skin but don’t necessarily want a lot of coverage.

That said, for those seeking full coverage, Jane Iredale’s Glow Time Full Coverage Mineral BB Cream is an excellent option, with a larger variety of shades to choose from to match your skin tone. Its full, creamy, easy to use coverage formula creates a truly flawless pallette with the benefits of SPF 30, added moisture and beneficial nutrients.

Do you see BB cream in your future?

Want to try healthier beauty products to find what works for you?  Check out Goodebox, a members only discovery and trial service for healthy beauty and natural wellness products.

top image: victoria nevland

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