[Guide] Japanese sunscreen round-up, January–March 2022

Back in January/early February, someone mentioned feeling overwhelmed by all the sunscreen updates. I think that’s probably mostly my fault; I was stuck at home so I was updating my massive sunscreen spreadsheet, and thought I would share what I found in the process. It seems like the flood of sunscreen releases (and reformulations, repackagings, and discontinuations) has slowed down for now, so here are all my comments/posts on this subject, reorganized by brand.

These are all the announcements I’ve posted about for January–March, with some exceptions from before or after that time (and obviously not completely exhaustive—there are brands/companies that I’ve intentionally excluded, and surely many other releases that I just simply don’t know about). I’m also excluding what appear to be rereleases of the same product (e.g., UV-yohou aka Shigaisen Yohou). As I’ve noted in a couple of posts, I’m including makeup primers because makeup primers with SPF and face sunscreens are pretty much lumped together in Japan. A bunch of the product names just link to this same massive post where I’ve been tossing everything that doesn’t seem to be particularly popular on the sub already.

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of new products that contain ingredients like cica or dipotassium glycyrrhizate and have extra moisturizing claims in particular. Shimmery/pearlescent finishes seem very common among tone-up sunscreens and makeup primers, though the degree of shimmeriness could of course vary. The ability to protect against pollutants/microparticles (dust, pollen, PM2.5, etc.) in some way also seems practically standard now. So I wouldn’t pick a product exclusively for any of these properties without comparing them to the other options out there first.

Also, just to be clear, I don’t mean to be encouraging people to buy more things if they’re already happy with what they’re using. I just think it would of course be good to be aware if there are any changes to that product, and to know about the options that are available if they’re looking for something else. And personally I don’t buy anything that costs more per unit than the regular Allie gel unless I have a specific reason, but I’m including more expensive products because it’s not up to me to tell anyone how to spend their money.

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• Reformulations
  • Brands that seem popular on this sub
  • Other brands
• Discontinuations
• Repackagings and limited edition sizes/designs
• New releases
  • Brands that seem popular on this sub
  • Products that seem like things I might see on this sub from brands I rarely or never see mentioned
  • Products from other brands: Under 3000 JPY
  • Products from other brands: 3000 JPY or more
  • After March

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• IL = Ingredient list (posted translation)
• PP = Packaging photos (added Imgur link)
• TP = Tester photo (added Imgur link)
• AIR = Available if requested (i.e., I specifically remember seeing testers at my local stores and can take a photo if anyone wants me to), including products I’ve purchased and will eventually review; I wasn’t really paying attention before, so this column will be updated

I’m also willing to take ingredient list translation requests (within reason; I may stop if there are too many). I’ll probably continue to edit this post without any specific notice to reflect whatever new information I might have, or if I post more packaging/tester photos or something. (And if anyone catches any mistakes, please let me know!!)