![]() There’s a difference between becoming a sunscreen truther and simply trying to understand and digging into the details. If you’re feeling nervous, don’t go joining the anti-sunscreen community just yet. All of the tested ingredients, including oxybenzone and octinoxate, were found in the bloodstream of participants in as soon as seven days, at amounts above the FDA’s safety threshold. Also published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, it examined six common sunscreen ingredients by testing 48 participants and having them apply sunscreen multiple times a day for 21 days. More recently, in January of this year, a new paper found basically the same thing through an expanded study with a greater sample size. It seemed to amount to “Maybe chemical sunscreen is dangerous, but let’s all keep using it until we know for sure.” The study concluded, in a way that was both vague and alarming, that the amount absorbed was significant enough to require more testing but not so large as to warrant banning it entirely. Last year, oxybenzone and octinoxate became part of the conversation again after a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that certain chemical-sunscreen ingredients can be absorbed into the bloodstream. Hawaii considered entirely banning sunscreens containing these two ingredients. ![]() ![]() Many brands, such as Shiseido’s Ultimate Sun Protector Lotion SPF 50+ Sunscreen and Australian Gold, have removed them from their formulations. In 2018, when sunscreen was found to be damaging to coral reefs, the study pointed specifically to these ingredients, which appear in 65 percent of chemical sunscreens. They are the Jeffree Starr and Shane Dawson of sunscreen: very popular and regarded with high suspicion. ![]() GOOP, naturally (pun intended), is on it with an article called “ Understanding - and Avoiding - Toxic Sunscreens” about the very subject.Ĭentral to the sunscreen dialogue are two commonly used chemical-sunscreen ingredients, oxybenzone and octinoxate. Some consider the chemical kind to be toxic, a word so overused it can mean almost everything, including “containing chemicals” (not a bad thing). Physical sunscreens (sometimes called “mineral sunscreens”) form a literal wall on your skin that blocks harmful UVA and UVB rays via ingredients like zinc oxide, while chemical sunscreens use ingredients like oxybenzone and octinoxate to absorb the rays. Complicating things, it’s not just about sunscreen versus no sunscreen - there’s a debate about physical versus chemical sunscreens, too. The anti-sunscreen movement isn’t nearly as large (or as scary ) as the anti-vaxx movement, but it’s a similar case of evidence-based science becoming ideological. “Sunscreen absorbed into the skin might be worse for you than sunshine,” it boldly said, right next to “Do one thing a day that scares you.” More recently, Lululemon tried to hide its anti-sunscreen agenda on its platitude-printed reusable shopping bags. (She later walked these comments back, saying she just tries to look for “more natural options.”) A Pilates teacher once advised me, in the middle of doing a move called “the clam,” to use tomato seeds as SPF. “I do not use anything synthetic,” she explained. Some of them are very famous: Several years ago, Gisele Bündchen called sunscreen “ poison,” adding that she protects her skin by not going outside after 8 a.m. Anti-sunscreeners pop up in Mommy Facebook groups and write op-eds on. Pay enough attention to the dialogue around natural beauty in this country, and you’ll start to notice there’s an anti-SPF movement afoot.
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