@Rangoon - I think you mean me...? "By the way for the poster with the sunblock allergy, we had similar trouble with my youngest. He came out in hives. I had a huge stock of sunblock as I kept trying different ones. He reacted to the carrier in the mineral sunscreens too. The only thing that we found that worked was the Cetaphil sunblock. Just in case it's helpful."
It is helpful. Thank you. My youngest is now a nocturnal 16 year old, but at some point he and his itchy skin will want to be out in the sun (especially as he's going into an outdoors trade!). Cetaphil sunblock is definitely worth a try, because despite his olive skin... I do worry. My father also has olive skin and, as I said in my post, has worrisome blemishes on his face right now (following a throat cancer scare two years ago).
My ex and I both have the same olive/don't burn easily skin of our son, both spent years working in the outdoors (I'm an archaeologist, he's a tree surgeon), but both used sun screen, wore hats, long sleeves, baggy clothing, and so forth. My oldest (who is very fair skinned) was slathered in sun screen as a child and has only started to burn since she turned 20 and I stopped nagging her to apply and reapply. My youngest would have been similarly slathered, if he didn't have this reaction. And hives - as you'll know - are not pleasant. Especially not when you're a year old and don't know what's happening to you!
So thank you, and I will certainly be discussing this with both my son and his father in an attempt to discover if, finally, there's something that might work on him. Because he's too old now for us to wrangle him into a long-sleeved shirt and hat whenever it happens to be hot/sunny. We do have years of practice between us, however, but... he's almost 17, taller than both of us, and surly during sunlit hours [grins]
Very sincerely though: thank you. 