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

*so pretty*

Mermaid basking in the sunshine on the beach
(Image credit: Getty)

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!

Actinica SPF50+ Sunscreen

(Image credit: Marie Claire)

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.

Saoirse Ronan in a scene from 'Hanna'

(Image credit: Focus Features)

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.

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Chelsea Peng is a writer and editor who was formerly the assistant editor at Marie Claire. She's also worked for The Strategist and Refinery29, and is a graduate of Northwestern University. On her tombstone, she would like a GIF of herself that's better than the one that already exists on the Internet and a free fro-yo machine. Besides frozen dairy products, she's into pirates, carbs, Balzac, and snacking so hard she has to go lie down.