Mentholatum - Sunplay Water Kids (sunscreen lotion) review

Dear Beauty Diary,
I stumbled across a sunscreen recently and bought it solely because of the cute chick hopping on the bottle. Its the Mentholatum Sunplay Water Kids sunscreen lotion! I got it for about $14 (USD $11.20) at Guardians, which is really budget friendly for a sunscreen.

A whole row on the shelf was dedicated to Mentholatum sunscreens - there's the one for sensitive skin, the one for sports, the one for a refreshing feeling, etc. I chose the one for children, since I wanted the sunscreen to be the most natural. (Its not a natural-based product though!)

Cute design, but very small bottle.

Small opening to squeeze out the lotion

From the ingredients list, I can tell that this is a chemical sunscreen. It means that this will sink into your skin and absorb the UV rays instead of letting the UV rays damage your skin directly. I'm ok with chemical sunscreens, I've no issue against them. It is very light and runny texture, it actually comes out of the tube as a liquid. However, I should mention that this particular sunscreen left a powdery and slightly oily feeling on my skin after I let it sink it. I don't really like the experience of applying it due to its texture.

This is enough to cover your whole face. As you can tell, its a very runny, water-based lotion.

I went out to a water-theme park with my friends recently, and had to apply sunscreen on my entire face and body since the sun was scorching hot. I brought this sunscreen along with me. I used up a quarter of the bottle just applying the sunscreen to my body. :( That's not very good, why do I need so much product? Furthermore, the bottle contains so little product!

The packaging did not say that this product is not meant to be applied on the face. Since I only had this bottle of sunscreen with me at the water park, I decided to slap some onto my face. It left the same powdery, grainy feeling on my face, and left my face slightly oily, but I could see it shining back at me in my reflection, there was just so much excess oil there. Not a good look!

I guess oily-skinned people should not use this sunscreen, it'll leave you looking even oilier. Perhaps this product is best suited for those with dry skin. However, do take note of the powdery texture I mentioned earlier, especially if you are considering to buy this sunscreen. I didn't really like that texture...

I had quite some trouble removing the sunscreen. I used an oil based make-up remover and lots of tissue paper, but I still had that oily, powdery feeling on my face. I got really fed-up removing it, since it was such a pain in the ass to remove. I think I just ended up using my regular face cleanser to harshly remove this sunscreen lotion. >.<

Along with the fact that I turned red and a few shades darker after playing in the sun, I have come to a conclusion that this sunscreen is just not compatible with me. It didn't protect me at all from the sun, even though I applied generously (I even used up a quarter of the bottle!).

Overall, I don't think there is much to be said about this product. Truthfully, its quite a meh product to me. It just doesn't do its job as a sunscreen. I won't be recommending it, and there are many other sunscreens out there in the market.

Tried it? What are your thoughts? Any nice sunscreens to recommend? :) I'm always on the lookout for a good sunscreen!