The (Surprising) Product That Will Give You Pearlescent Mermaid Skin

If I told you one product could

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You wouldn't respond because the sheer awesomeness would have overwhelmed your body, causing you to lose consciousness. But it's true—there is a commercially available thing that can do all the above at the same time, and you can buy it for approximately $20. Ta da!

In a Q&A with my beauty kindred spirit Lisa Eldridge, makeup artist Ivana Primorac says she uses Actinica Daylong Lotion, a hardcore sunscreen "developed especially for people who are at a higher risk than others to develop skin cancer due to UV exposure," to give skin a luminous, ethereal quality. She put it on Kate Winslet in Labor Day so she'd be pretty-sweaty harboring fugitive/girlfriend-killer Josh Brolin. She put it on the mermaids in Pan, as seen earlier. And she put it on Saoirse Ronan in Hanna because children trained as assassins and otherworldly complexions aren't mutually exclusive.

According to the manufacturer's website, the proper method of application is two pumps—which should absorb fully—before makeup. But if you really wanted to heighten the shiny-alien-ness, you might go back with some lotion on your brush and highlight the tops of the cheekbones, the center of the lid, and the nose indent because that's what the man who first taught Kim Kardashian how to do her makeup told us to do. Medical-grade sun protection! Smooth, reflective, un-greasy skin! A tail that lures sailors to their deaths. No, wait. Sorry. Can't help you in that department.