Our faces are basically online all day. Between the laptop we work from, the phone we check approximately every five minutes and the late night scroll we absolutely meant to cut short, screen time has become a nearly constant part of modern life. And increasingly, skincare brands are starting to think about what all that exposure might mean for our skin, too.
That question is at the center of Zouck, the new skincare and sun care line from founder Polly Silverman. Developed over more than two years with a chemist, the collection looks beyond traditional sun protection to ingredients selected to support skin against the oxidative stress associated with UV, pollution and blue light. There is mineral SPF for daytime, antioxidant support throughout the day and even a moisturizer aptly named Night Scroll for everything that comes after.
We caught up with Silverman to talk about what screen time actually has to do with skincare, why she became obsessed with making mineral sunscreen feel genuinely good to wear, the ingredients behind Zouck and where she sees the brand fitting into an increasingly crowded SPF market.
In conversation with Polly Silverman
We spend so much of our day looking at phones and laptops now. When you were creating Zouck, what made you start thinking about screen time as part of the skincare conversation?
There are a million reasons to limit your screen time, but most people don’t realize that skincare might be one of them. Blue light, including the very light coming at your readers right now, has been studied for its ability to generate free radicals that create oxidative stress in the skin, contributing to inflammation, persistent pigmentation and the breakdown of collagen.
The first time I read about the harmful effects of blue light, I was lying in bed with my laptop just inches away from my face. The idea for Screen Screen was immediate. Making the product come to life took a lot longer.
Over two years working with a chemist, I formulated Screen Screen with the range of oxidative stressors of modern life in mind: UV, obviously, but also pollution and blue light. That’s why Zouck’s formula is mineral sun protection combined with antioxidants, including vitamin E, ethyl ferulate and green tea. But our exposure to blue light doesn’t end when the sun goes down. Most of us just take it to bed with us. Night Scroll is a nighttime moisturizer that supports skin against that same oxidative stress without the SPF. And Screen Screen Face Oil layers under SPF and Night Scroll for an extra antioxidant boost and a delicious application.
When you started developing the line with your chemist, what did you want to change about the way sunscreen looked, felt and fit into a daily skincare routine?
I wanted sunscreen to earn its place in your daily skincare ritual.
Most skincare has an immediate payoff, for example, a toner that makes your skin feel tighter and clean clean, or an oil that gives you suppleness right away.
Sunscreen has historically only offered a future payoff: less sun damage, less pigmentation, lower cancer risk. Those reasons are important, but humans are notoriously bad at delayed gratification. My goal for Zouck was to create a sunscreen that people will put on every single day. More than once a day. Even when it’s not sunny. I wanted to create a product so appealing that you’ll actually want to reapply.
Beyond zinc, we built in things I wanted from my skincare: snow mushroom and glycerin for hydration, antioxidants like green tea and ethyl ferulate, adaptogens like purslane and ashwagandha. It had to protect skin, but it also had to make skin look and feel good right now.
BLUE Oléoactif shows up in both Screen Screen Oil and Night Scroll. What was it about that ingredient and its research that made you want to build it into the collection?
BLUE Oléoactif was exactly the kind of ingredient I’d been looking for, and finding it meant other people were already thinking about this the same way I was.
It’s a patented ingredient derived from black, brown and red rice, with naturally occurring antioxidant compounds. What drew me to it was the research on environmental stressors specifically, blue light, pollution, which fit the broader idea of protection for modern life that Zouck was already built around.
Zinc oxide is the physical shield you want during the day. It’s also famously gentle and calming (it’s the main ingredient in diaper cream!). But you don’t need SPF at night, so that’s where Night Scroll comes in. We formulated it for hydration, antioxidant support, soothing ingredients, and barrier support. It’s built around BLUE Oléoactif, calming chamomile, snow mushroom and purslane, to support skin after everything it’s encountered during the day.
Are there any other ingredients across the line that you became particularly obsessed with during the development process, either because of what they could do or because you hadn’t seen them used much in sun care?
Zouck doesn’t have a single hero ingredient. Everything in the formulation is there for a reason. Or, put another way, every single ingredient in the formula is a hero.
For example, I’m obsessed with snow mushroom. It’s a humectant, so people often compare it to hyaluronic acid, and I love the way it feels on skin. It gives you this plumped, hydrated feeling without that tackiness you sometimes get from hyaluronic acid. And its polysaccharides have antioxidant properties, so it made sense within this larger idea of helping support skin against oxidative stress.
Ashwagandha and purslane were two of the bigger discoveries, adaptogenic botanicals that made so much sense within this idea of environmental stress.
Then there are the ingredients that aren’t glamorous but matter so much. Triethoxycaprylylsilane helps disperse the zinc oxide evenly, which is what determines how a mineral sunscreen spreads, feels, and looks on skin. I became just as obsessed with those technical ingredients because they’re what really holds the formula together and makes it a product you actually want to use.
Screen Screen SPF goes beyond zinc oxide with ingredients like green tea, purslane, snow mushroom, tara, rice extracts and ethyl ferulate. What did you want that formula to offer someone beyond traditional sun protection?
We tend to think about sunscreen as a product associated with the beach, but the reality is that skin encounters a range of environmental stress every day, and I wanted our products to reflect that.
Our skin is living in the same world we are: pollution, lack of sleep, light across the spectrum. All of those things can contribute to oxidative stress.
So I wanted Screen Screen to do what I already wanted from my skincare: hydrate, nourish, support the skin barrier and provide antioxidant support. Zinc oxide is there to do the essential job of protecting against UV, but I didn’t see why the formula had to stop there.
Sunscreen is something you’re ideally putting on your face every single day, probably more consistently than almost anything else you own. That’s an incredible opportunity. I wanted it to feel less like sunscreen layered over your skincare, and more like sunscreen that is your skincare.
Mineral sunscreen is notoriously hard to get right when it comes to texture and white cast. What took the most trial and error with Screen Screen before you finally felt like you had the formula you wanted?
Everything. We spent over two years on the formula, because every improvement affected something else. This isn’t white-labeling, taking a ready-made base and tweaking the packaging. Zouck was made from scratch. Getting zinc to feel elegant on skin without sacrificing protection was the hardest part.
Zinc is bright white. That’s where the cast comes from. The usual way brands deal with it is to add a tint, so the color cancels out on your skin. But a tint only suits certain complexions, and the pigment rubs off on your clothes. I didn’t want to hide the cast. I wanted a formula that didn’t leave one in the first place.
That’s what pushed me toward real oils, butters, and plant extracts, building a light, spreadable base that carries finely coated zinc so evenly it goes on clear, no color needed. It’s the hard way to do it. Every one of those ingredients behaves differently on skin: some sink in and disappear, some feel rich and sit on the surface, some turn greasy or chalky if you use a little too much. Getting them to work together, so the whole thing glides on, sinks in, and still feels good hours later, took version after version.
The other shortcut I refused was silicone. Many mineral formulas get their smooth, elegant feel from a silicone called dimethicone, but I didn’t want to rely on silicone to get that slip and spreadability. So I was chasing a combination almost nothing on the market pulls off at once: genuine zinc protection, a texture that feels like a luxury moisturizer, no silicone, and no tint. Each of those alone is easy. Together, without compromising on any of them, they fight each other constantly. That’s what took over two years to get right.
I didn’t want something that disappeared but felt dry, or something nourishing that sat visibly on top of skin. It couldn’t pill. It couldn’t sting if it got in your eyes when you sweat. There were endless versions that were almost right, and the real test was always the same: would I reapply it? I kept reformulating until the answer was yes.
Night Scroll is such an interesting counterpart to all of the daytime protection products. What was the thinking behind creating something specifically for the skin after a full day of sun, pollution and screen exposure?
I’ve always thought of Zouck as a 24-hour idea, rather than just a sunscreen brand. During the day, you protect. At night, skin needs time to recover, just like you.
Night Scroll came out of my own delightful habit of bringing my phone into bed and tunnelling into IG, the news, TikTok, sometimes switching between real headlines and The Onion just to see how close they’ve gotten.
I wanted something restorative you can put on at night to give something back to your skin: hydration, antioxidants, barrier support, ingredients that soothe and replenish.
Zouck isn’t about pretending we have perfectly optimized lives. It’s about making products for the lives we actually live.
And for the person who spends eight hours at a laptop, checks their phone constantly and then winds down by scrolling in bed, what would your ideal Zouck routine look like from morning to night?
Oh, you mean me? My routine is pretty simple. In the morning, I wash my face, apply a bit of toner, and then I use Screen Screen Oil. It delivers instant nourishment and glow. (It’s like the skincare equivalent of getting your lashes tinted; you just look more awake.)
Screen Screen SPF is the essential last step. I keep Re around for reapplication during the day.
At night: cleanse well, then Night Scroll. If my skin’s dry, I’ll layer Screen Screen Oil on top. That’s basically it.
Protecting your skin doesn’t need to be another complicated wellness project. Protect during the day. Give something back at night.
There are so many excellent sunscreens on the market now, from dermatologist staples to luxury skincare formulas. Where do you see Zouck fitting into that landscape, and what do you think makes the line meaningfully different?
There are a lot more sunscreen options out there these days, which is great. But if any of them was just right, I’d be using it, and Zouck wouldn’t exist.
The way I think about choosing a sunscreen is that it’s a funnel. At the top, there are hundreds of formulas. But the funnel narrows quickly once you get specific about what you want. For me, I had five criteria:
First, mineral, not chemical. I wanted zinc oxide because it’s gentle and dependable, particularly for sensitive skin, and provides broad-spectrum protection with just one ingredient. That decision alone eliminates a vast number of the sunscreen formulas currently on the market.
Second, no silicone emollients. Dimethicone is a silicone often used to give mineral sunscreen the slip and spreadability people want. I didn’t want to lean on that silicone feel to make the product seem elegant. Zouck gets its glide and delicious texture from plant-derived esters, and its substance from oils and butters, cocoa, soybean, karanja, lipid chemistry that mimics the stuff skin already makes.
Third, no tint. Mineral sunscreen tends to leave a white cast. Tint is a common way brands make the white cast of mineral sunscreen less noticeable, but it makes the product less accessible and the pigment gets all over your clothes. We got our finish the harder way: finely coated zinc, evenly dispersed in a light, spreadable base, for the most cast-free result mineral can give.
Fourth, actively hydrating. I wanted an SPF that left my skin feeling genuinely nourished. Snow mushroom and glycerin pull water in; cocoa seed butter and soybean oil keep it there.
And fifth, a stack of antioxidants to help defend against the oxidative stress associated with blue-light exposure. In Zouck, that’s green tea, vitamin E, ethyl ferulate.
By the time you reach the bottom of that funnel, very few products remain. Zouck exists because I couldn’t find one that met all five criteria without asking me to compromise somewhere.
