Is Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+ the best sunscreen for dark spots? Bioderma swears it helps you both fade away the dark spots you already have and prevent new ones from forming – without leaving a greasy, white mess all over your skin. Is it too good to be true?
Technically speaking, ANY sunscreen will help you prevent dark spots. Block the UV rays that cause them and you’ll lessen the chances they’ll make an appearance on your skin. But does this sunscreen have anything special that goes the extra mile when it comes to preventing and treating dark spots? I’ve put it to the test to find out:
- Key Ingredients In Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+: What Makes It Work?
- The Rest Of The Formula & Ingredients
- Texture
- Fragrance
- How To Use It
- Packaging
- Performance & Personal Opinion
- What I Like About Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+
- What I DON’T Like About Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+
- Who Should Use This?
- Does Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+ Live Up To Its Claims?
- Price & Availability
- The Verdict: Should I Buy It?
- Dupes & Alternatives
Key Ingredients In Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+: What Makes It Work?
UV FILTERS TO PROVIDE BROAD SPECTRUM PROTECTION
Sunscreen is key to treating any form of hyperpigmentation, especially sun spots. Think about it. UV rays play a main role in the development of dark spots. Using skin-lighteners without sunscreen totally defeats the purpose. Those dark spots you’re desperate to fade away will come back with a vengeance after a few days in the sun.
The higher the SPF of your sunscreen, the better. Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+ has a high SPF thanks to:
- Octocrylene: An UV filter that protects from ALL UVB but only short UVA rays. It also makes sunscreens water-resistant and boosts the effectiveness of other UV filters (like avobenzone).
- Methylene Bis-Benzotriazolyl Tetreamethylbutylphenol [Nano]: A.k.a., Tinosorb M, it’s highly photostable and provides broad spectrum coverage. It also helps stabilise other UV filters, so they last longer, too.
- Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane: A.k.a. avobenzone, an UVA filter that’s very unstable (i.e. stops working quickly when exposed to light) on its own. It’s absorbed by the body (and expelled quickly through urine), so it’s not recommended during pregnancy.
- Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine: A.k.a. Tinosorb S, it offers excellent protection from both UVA and UVB rays.
Related: What Are The Best UV Filters?
SKIN-LIGHTENERS TO FADE AWAY DARK SPOTS
Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+ doesn’t just protect your skin from UV rays to prevent new dark spots from forming. It also has its fair share of skin-lighteners to help you fade away those you already have:
- Ascorbyl Glucoside: This is a stable form of Vitamin C that fights free radicals, boosts collagen production, and fades away hyperpigmentation. Unfortunately, it’s not as effective as 15% L-Ascorbic Acid at treating dark spots. It may help, but don’t hold your breath.
- Niacinamide: A form of Vitamin B3 that reduces sallowness and dark spots. While it’s at it, it hydrates skin, soothes irritations, and even helps treat acne.
- Azelaic Acid: An acid your skin’s microbiome (the good bacteria and yeast that live on your skin) produces. Research shows that azelaic acid is more effective than 4% hydroquinone (the gold standard for hyperpigmentation) at reducing dark spots and Melasma. It’s also gentler on the skin. It can also help treat acne and rosacea.
The catch? All these 3 ingredients are present in small amounts. That means they work really slowly.
Translation: this sunscreen can slightly boost the effectiveness of skin-lightening products, but it’s not a substitute for them. Use it for hyperpigmentation prevention, not treatment.
Related: The Battle Of The Skin-Lighteners: Which Is The Best Alternative To Hydroquinone?
How effective is your sunscreen? Subscribe to my newsletter below and download the “Sunscreen Audit” to find out:
SILICONES TO MINIMIZE IMPERFECTIONS
The base of this sunscreen is made up of silicones. It’s not as bad as you think. Silicones do a lot of good things in skincare:
- Enhance texture: They allow the sun cream to glide on smoothly, without tugging or pulling.
- Fill in fine lines and wrinkles: It’s a trick to make them look temporarily smaller.
- Softens skin: It makes it feel silky soft to the touch.
They don’t even cause pimples: silicones have a particular molecular structure made up of larger molecules with wider spaces between each molecule. They create a barrier that keeps moisture in but still allows skin to perspire. But if you use anything comedogenic before this moisturiser, then yes, silicones can trap them underneath their protective barrier and cause breakouts.
Bottom line: don’t use comedogenic ingredients in your skincare and you’ll be fine.
The Rest Of The Formula & Ingredients
NOTE: The colours indicate the effectiveness of an ingredient. It is ILLEGAL to put toxic and harmful ingredients in skincare products.
- Green: It’s effective, proven to work, and helps the product do the best possible job for your skin.
- Yellow: There’s not much proof it works (at least, yet).
- Red: What is this doing here?!
- Aqua/Water/Eau: The base of most skincare products, it helps dissolve other ingredients in the formula.
- Dicaprylyl Carbonate: An emollient that makes skin softer and smoother to the touch.
- Glycerin: A humectant that draws moisture from the air into your skin, helping to keep it hydrated and supple for hours. It’s underrated, but your skin would miss it if it weren’t here.
- Dipropylene Glycol: It’s a texture enhancer that makes the product a pleasure to use.
- Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Oil: A rich emollient that strengthens the skin’s protective barrier to keep moisture in and environmental aggressors out. It makes skin softer and smoother and reduces irritations.
- Silica: A mineral found in clays as well as some plants and animals. It has several jobs in skincare products. Here, it’s used to help sunscreen spread evenly on your skin for a safer application and to absorb excess oil.
- Jojoba Esters: Essential fatty acids from the jojoba plant, they deeply moisturise and soften skin.
- HDI/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer: It enhances the slip of the formula, so that it applies evenly. Plus, it prevents ingredients from separating in the tube.
- Decyl Glucoside: It’s mostly used as a cleansing agent. But it’s here to stabilise the formula and make sure it doesn’t separate in the tube.
- C20-22 Alkyl Phosphate: It gives formulas a silky feeling and a matte finish.
- C20-22 Alcohols: They help stabilise the emulsion and formula.
- Xanthan Gum: It helps to thicken the texture.
- Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Wax: Derived from sunflower seeds, it’s loaded with moisturising fatty acids and antioxidants, including Vitamins A and E. It makes skin softer and smoother and fight the free radicals that make you age faster.
- Pentylene Glycol: It has hydrating properties for skin and also helps active ingredients better penetrate it.
- Tocopherol Acetate: A form of Vitamin E that helps fight free radicals before they give you wrinkles.
- Sodium Hydroxide: It helps to adjust the pH of skincare products.
- Hydrogenated Castor Oil: Derived from castor oil, it’s moisturising and makes skin softer and smoother. Plus, it helps to improve the texture and consistency of the formula.
- Salicylic Acid: It’s mostly an exfoliant with anti-inflammatory properties. But in this small concentration, it won’t do much. It’s one of my fave ingredients, but it gets a yellow rating because it doesn’t really do much here.
- Sodium Citrate: It helps to adjust the pH of skincare products.
- Lysine: An amino acid that hydrates skin.
- Mannitol: A plant-derived sugar that deeply hydrates skin.
- Polyglycerin-3: A humectant that attracts and binds water to your skin, helping to keep it hydrated for longer.
- Xylitol: A natural sugar with water-binding properties that makes skin softer and smoother.
- Andrographis Paniculata Leaf Extract: It makes skin softer and smoother.
- Rhamnose: Another type of sugar with hydrating properties.
- Propylene Glycol: It has hydrating properties for skin. It also helps active ingredients better penetrate it.
- Acacia Decurrens Flower Wax: It makes both the texture of the sunscreen and your skin softer.
- Saccharide Isomerate: A complex mixture of hydrating corn-derived sugars which have hydrating properties
- Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract: Derived from licorice, it has skin-lightening and soothing properties. It gets a yellow rating because there isn’t enough of it here to do the job well.
- Tocopherol: A form of Vitamin E. It prevents wrinkles and helps other ingredients last longer.
- Fructooligosaccharides: A type of oligosaccharide and carbohydrate found in plants. They hydrate skin, fight free radicals, and helps keep your skin’s microbiome balanced.
- Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride: A conditioning agent that makes skin softer and smoother.
- Laminaria Ochroleuca Extract: A type of seaweed with hydrating properties.
- Fragrance: It makes the product smell good, but it’s a common allergens that causes problems for sensitive skin.
Texture
It’s a sunscreen, so expect the texture to be on the thick side, but not excessively so. It absorbs quickly into the skin, leaving a subtle sheen on. But no greasy residue.
Fragrance
I’m not a fan of fragrance in skincare products, especially in brands that claim to care for sensitive skin (like Bioderma). Fragrance makes a product smell good. It’s also the most irritating ingredient in skincare and can cause rashes and other nasties in sensitive skin. If your skin isn’t bothered by fragrance, you can still use it without experiencing side effects. So what does it smell like? Sunscreen. It smells like sunscreen (I know, unoriginal). It’s subtle, too.
How To Use It
Sunscreen is always the last step of your morning skincare routine. Apply it generously (at least 1/3 of a teaspoon for face and neck) without rubbing. Reapply as often as necessary. Wait until 15 minutes before applying makeup. You need to give the sunscreen time to settle, or the foundation will rub it off.
Related: Is Your Foundation Application Messing Up Your Sunscreen?
Packaging
The sunscreen comes in a sleek white tube that makes you think of purity and skin-lightening (clever marketing). It has a pump applicator that makes it practical to use and easy to carry around with you for frequent reapplication.
Performance & Personal Opinion
I’m a skincare minimalist. If I can use one product instead of two, I will. That means I always opt for moisturising sunscreens that provide both hydration and sun protection. Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+ doesn’t. This is strictly a sunscreen. It doesn’t even add one drop of extra moisture to my skin. That’s cool if you have oily skin.
Everyone else – me included – need to layer this on top of moisturiser if you don’t your skin to dry out during the day. FYI, you may want to keep a mist or Hyaluronic Acid serum in your bag with you so you can add back the moisture while touching up sunscreen. Just don’t mix them. Mixing anything with sunscreen dilutes the SPF!
One more thing: you may need to wait a few minutes in between moisturiser and sunscreen. When I don’t, I experience pilling. That aside, I love the texture of this sunscreen. It glides on smoothly, sinks in quickly, and doesn’t leave any greasy or messy residue on the skin. On my pale complexion, it doesn’t even leave a white residue. If only every sunscreen were like this!
The sunscreen dries to a slightly dewy finish that gives a subtle glow to the skin. Nope, it doesn’t look shiny. Just glowy. And it makes a good base for makeup, too. In case you’re wondering, it does provide excellent sun protection. As long as you apply it generously, it’ll keep your skin safe from UV harm, tans, and new dark spots.
Related: How To Reapply Sunscreen While Wearing Makeup
What I Like About Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+
- Smooth, creamy texture, easy to spread
- Dries to a slight glowy finish
- Provides excellent protection from UV rays
- Helps prevent dark spots
- Practical packaging
What I DON’T Like About Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+
- Can’t reduce the dark spots you already have
- Has fragrance, which may irritate sensitive skin
- Not hydrating
Who Should Use This?
Anyone who is not allergic to fragrance can use this. But, it’s best suitable for oily and acne-prone skin. If your skin is dry, you need to moisturise well before using this.
Does Bioderma Pigmentbio Daily Care SPF 50+ Live Up To Its Claims?
| CLAIM | TRUE? |
|---|---|
| Instantly illuminates and protects, unifies & brightens lastingly. | It has a slightly glowy finish that instantly illuminates skin and protects from UV rays, but it can’t unify and brighten skin on its own. |
| Helps to reduce the appearance of existing dark spots and prevents new ones from appearing. | True. But it works way better at preventing new dark spots than treating the ones you already have. |
| Offers a very high sun protection UVA / UVB SPF 50+. | True. |
| Brightens complexion and evens out skin tone. | Very slowly. |
| Prevents visible signs of premature ageing. | True. UV rays are responsible for up to 90% of premature aging, so anything that provides broad spectrum protection does this. |
| Provides long lasting hydration. | It’s NOT hydrating at all. |
| Its pearly texture provides an instant glow. | True. |
| Very good cutaneous tolerance – Non-comedogenic – Excellent make-up base. | True. |
Price & Availability
£18.50 at Look Fantastic
The Verdict: Should I Buy It?
If you’re looking for a non-greasy sunscreen for oily skin with hyperpigmentation, this is a great option to consider.
[penci_review]
Dupes & Alternatives
- Uriage Depiderm Anti-Brown Spot Daytime Care SPF 50+ (£26.39): A new generation chemical sunscreen with Vitamin C and licorice extract to prevent dark spots. Available at Look Fantastic and Sephora
Ingredients
Aqua/Water/Eau, Dicaprylyl Carbonate, Octocrylene, Methylene Bis-Benzotriazolyl Tetreamethylbutylphenol [Nano], Glycerin, Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane, Dipropylene Glycol, Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine, Dimethicone, Ascorbyl Glucoside, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Oil, Niacinamide, Silica, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, Jojoba Esters, HDI/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer, Decyl Glucoside, C20-22 Alkyl Phosphate, C20-22 Alcohols, Xanthan Gum, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Wax, Dimethicone/Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Pentylene Glycol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Sodium Hydroxide, Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Salicylic Acid, Sodium Citrate, Lysine, Azelaic Acid, Mannitol, Polyglycerin-3, Xylitol, Andrographics Paniculata Leaf Extract, Rhamnose, Propylene Glycol, Acacia Decurrens Flower Wax, Saccharide Isomerate, Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract, Tocopherol, Fructooligosaccharides, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Laminaria Ochroleuca Extract, Fragrance (Parfum).
