The best sunscreens for summer: Sali Hughes’s 57 favourite face and body SPFs

From kid-friendly creams and Pritt-Stick-style solids to the best for oily and dry skin, these are the sunscreens our beauty columnist rates the most

• Anti-ageing products that actually work: Sali Hughes on the 30 best serums, creams and treatments

We are bad at engaging with sun protection unless there’s a heatwave, or we’re venturing on holiday – and the gunky, greasy, spot-causing sunscreens of yore, which stained clothes and couldn’t be shifted, are partly to blame. TikTok misinformation and scaremongering (unsupported by significant clinical data) around rising cancer diagnoses on protected skin don’t help either. The dermatology community is united: high protection, broad spectrum SPF is the most important product you’ll use and the key defence against skin cancers and premature ageing of the skin.

The most important aspect of sun care is that people use it. The elegance of a modern sunscreen formula, the texture on fingertips and the comfort on skin, the smell, the packaging, the price, the finish and its ability to play nicely with other skincare and makeup products – these are, in my view, often the difference between someone’s decision to protect themselves or not. What follows are 57 user-friendly sunscreens I’ve enjoyed trying in recent years, all of which have proved popular with those to whom I’ve recommended them and none of which make sun protection a bind. I would gladly use any of them on my own family.