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What We Tested This Week: La Roche-Posay My Skin Track UV Sensor
Who This Is Perfect for: Anyone looking to personalize their skincare routine or rev up their sunscreen usage.
Take one look inside my medicine cabinet and you'll quickly discover my greatest vice. I'm a self-admitted skincare addict with a serious and sacred daily routine, but I have a secret: I've never been religious about wearing sunscreen every day.
For years, I ignored the foreboding warnings we've all heard before, brushing them off with the mindset that my personal daily sun exposure was uniquely limited. But it wasn't until a few months ago when I moved to Manhattan and realized just how much time most city dwellers actually spend on the streets and in the sun.
And now that I'm one of them — a subway-traveling, comfy-shoe-wearing New Yorker — the newest addition to my several-step process probably isn’t what you’d expect. In fact, it doesn't even come packaged in a pretty bottle or a compact tube.
It’s the My Skin Track UV, an M&M-sized wearable sensor from La Roche-Posay in partnership with Apple that measures your unique exposure to a number of environmental aggressors (like UV, pollution, pollen, heat, and humidity). The device detects UV in real time through the small hole at its center, and captures other factors through the app using aggregate information from geo-targeting location. It then processes that information and uses it to provide personalized advice and product recommendations through the brand’s companion app, available for both iOS and Android devices.
La Roche-Posay has dabbled with an innovative selection of skincare sensors in the past, including a color-changing UV patch and a super tiny stick-on device that’s intended to be worn on a fingernail (like nail art), but this is the first battery-free, wearable electronic sensor of its kind that's designed to keep logs of your personal levels to UV exposure. Unlike other models, it’s activated by the sun and powered by your smartphone through near-field communication, so you never need to replace a battery or remember to charge it.
Ready to install? Here's how it works:
Before you start sporting your sensor, you’ll need to download the app. It’ll take about 10 minutes to pair the device and answer some personal questions about your skin type and sunscreen usage, but once you’re all set, the sensor is ready to wear. It fastens just like a paperclip, so you can cinch it onto the corner of a jacket collar, the side of a sleeve, or even the brim of a baseball cap.
Pro tip: Secure it to your clothing with a safety pin to ensure that it won't budge.
The options are practically endless, as long as the sensor is uncovered and exposed to light. But because UV exposure varies based on where you wear it, you do have to notify the app about any placement changes to ensure an accurate reading.
From there, you can embark on your day donning your smart accessory, and the app will remind you to check in for a scan every few hours. Each time you do, it’ll update with your level of exposure to different types of pollution (think car emissions, gas vapors, and fuel burning) and calculate your max sun-stock, a percentage of the maximum recommended daily UV allowance derived from your skin tone and the UV index.
The app will send you a notification when you surpass 80% max sun-stock, and while my UV levels never spiked that dramatically at any time (shoutout to my indoor desk job and the not-quite-spring-yet weather in New York), I was genuinely surprised by how much even an hour-long stroll in the sun affected my metrics — so much that it scared me into routinely wearing sunscreen.
Another great app feature: At any point, you can monitor weather-related aggressors, like heat, pollen, air quality, and humidity, and even receive tips on how to prepare your skin for the day’s elements. It also features a separate tab for skin advice, and includes tips and recommended products that’ll address any skin concern you may have.
I was particularly interested in finding out whether or not the app would have any special recommendations for my sensitive, eczema-prone skin, and was totally blown away by how helpful and detailed the suggestions were.
Based on my personal exposure levels and skin concerns, the app suggested using a moisturizer or eczema cream twice daily, a non-foaming face wash, and a sunscreen with a broad spectrum SPF value of 15 or higher. Additionally, it recommended four La Roche-Posay products: The Toleriane Hydrating Gentle Cleanser, Lipikar Balm AP+ Intense Repair Body Cream, Lipikar Eczema Cream, and the Anthelios Melt-In Sunscreen Milk. I tested each and applied them liberally over a course of 2 weeks, and in just a matter of a few days, one of my worst eczema flare-ups of the season was totally healed and under control.
So if you're looking for the ultimate secret to skin that's both nourished and protected, you might just want to look beyond the bottle.
Pros
- Tiny and discreet
- Product recommendations are personalized to you and your lifestyle
- Provides the right tools to address skin concerns
- Encourages you to wear sunscreen every day
Cons
- Clip isn't totally secure
- Recommended products are only from La Roche-Posay
Read More:
These SPF Drops Will Give You Total Sun Protection Without Any Added Grease
10 Multitasking Moisturizers With SPF That Serve Double Duty
Chemical-Free Natural Sunscreens That'll Shield Your Skin
Zarah Kavarana is the contributing editor at BestProducts.com, where she spends her days hunting for shareworthy home, tech, fashion, beauty, and lifestyle finds, and resisting the urge to add them all to her cart. A Boston University journalism grad with a penchant for red wine, her hidden talents include poaching an egg and applying winged eyeliner on the subway.
