April showers, bring gorgeous May flowers and soon enough we will be deep in the heat of summer! Beach days, long walks, street fairs, music festivals and tons of outdoor activities! With all that warm weather action, sunscreen protection needs to be on our minds. Whether you are prone to skin issues, just want to stay protected or are a sun worshiper, we all need protection from UV rays. Learn more about which common US ingredients are banned in the European Union (and Hawaii!) and what SPF really means.
Choosing the right sunscreen can take a little bit of research, most of us know what SPF means but there’s actually so much more that goes into making the right choice.
The GRASE Scale
GRASE stands for “generally recognized as safe and effective”. Receiving a GRASE designation means that that particular ingredient is safe and according to experts, also effective. In 2021, the agency reviewed 16 ingredients, all the usual suspects when it comes to sunscreens, they reported that only TWO were actually safe; zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.
The following are the most common ingredients found in sunscreens in the US, none of these have received the GRASE designation: Avobenzone, cinoxate, dioxybenzone, ensulizole, homosalate, meradimate, octinoxate, octisalate, octocrylene, oxybenzone, padimate O, and sulisobenzone.
Oxybenzone, homosalate and octocrylene were found not safe in high amounts in the European Union and as a result have put a cap on those. The US cap far exceeds the EU. These three ingredients can be found in the blood weeks after its last use and have been detected in breast milk, urine and plasma samples. They have also been known to cause hormone disruption.
The most worrisome of the three is oxybenzone and should be avoided. Oxybenzone has been known to cause skin reactions, behaves like a hormone disruptor and is harmful to children. Studies have shown that young boys with higher oxybenzone measurements have lower total testosterone levels which greatly effects stages of puberty.
As mentioned, Oxybenzone is a hormone disrupter. In four separate studies in 2020 it showed that Oxybenzone can actually impact fertility, increase the risk of breast cancer and cause endometriosis. Also the National Toxicology Program performed a study where they found massive evidence of carcinogenic activity in rats.
The European commission reports oxybenzone is unsafe and any product containing it cannot exceed a 2% restriction in its concentration, that being said US sunscreens limit it’s restriction to 6%. We can go one step further with oxybenzone, several European countries and Hawaii have actually banned the sale of sunscreen with this ingredient because it harms aquatic life.
All of the remaining 12 ingredients play a hand in endocrine disruption as well, but Octinoxate or octyl methoxycinnamate, a non-mineral UV filter has been reported to have effects on thyroid hormone production and other hormones, like androgens and progesterone. Again, several European countries and Hawaii, also ban the sale of this ingredient in sunscreen due to it’s harm to aquatic life.
Also, Homosalate another non-mineral UV filter listed above which is also an endocrine disrupter has been capped in Europe with a maximum concentration of 1.4%, in the US it’s 15%! Just that alone, makes me worry!
So what to do? Stick with Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide. These are both mineral sunscreens. In 2021, the FDA approved and classified these with GRASE designation. Evidence suggests that these sunscreens do not penetrate the skin to the living tissues. One thing to mention that although the spray sunscreens are so convenient, inhalation of these nano particles can cause cancer so only use lotion or cream.
An Important Word about SPF and Broad Spectrum
Most people will reach for a higher SPF thinking that they are getting better protection from the suns harmful UV rays, but that is not true.
A good sunscreen should protect from UVA AND UVB rays, in other words, broad spectrum. The SPF rating only reflects how well a product protects against UVB rays. Reducing sunburn was the original intent of sunscreens but now research is finding that some UV rays cause other health issues, specifically aging and skin cancer, otherwise known as melanoma. It’s important to make sure the sunscreen you choose is Broad Spectrum.
There’s also a ton of research that sunscreens above 50 SPF do not provide any additional protection, so don’t be fooled. Researchers have also said that people using massively high SPFs typically stayed out in the sun longer thinking that they were protected better. Most studies showed that SPF 30-50 is more then sufficient.
In Conclusion
Play it safe and stick with mineral ingredients like zinc oxide and titanium oxide, be sure your sunscreen is broad spectrum and stay in the 30-50 SPF range.
If you have a medicine cabinet full of sunscreens and not sure, head over to ewg.com to check their rating system, they’ve been testing and researching sunscreens for 17 years!
