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Zinc Oxide Sunscreen: The Critical Ingredient for Sun Safety
Although sunscreen should be used all year, the advent of good weather causes us to pay more attention to protecting our skin from too much sun. Choosing products that achieve this task as safely as possible is indeed a difficult one for consumers, and particularly for parents with young children. The marketplace offers myriad choices, the popular media and ‘experts’ continually perpetuate misinformation and sunscreen myths and manufacturers regularly violate the regulations established by FDA in 1999 to protect consumers. It often appears various sunscreen companies are more worried about losing market share than maintaining their customer’s health.
Given these issues, and the failure of any information channel to publish comprehensive information about what we need to look for in sunscreens, the following document, also available online at www.kabanaskincare.com/sunscreencriteria.htm, was created.
Here’s a list of things to look for in sunscreens in order to evaluate product safety, and whether or not the manufacturer is more interested in selling sunscreen than protecting your health. At the end of each section there’s also concise information about how to protect yourself.
Marketing:
In 1999, the FDA determined that the following terms should not be used on labels to market sunscreen products:
Sunblock: FDA’s rationale to exclude this term was that it gives consumers a false sense of security that the product is ‘blocking’ out the sun. No sun product completely blocks the sun; instead all products screen UV from the skin to varying effective percentages: SPF 15 screens 93.3%, SPF 30 screens 96.7%. This illustrates why sunscreens marketed in excess of SPF 15 is largely a marketing gimmick.
Waterproof/Sweatproof: FDA also determined that these terms exaggerate the amount of sun protection a product affords. In order to indicate how water-resistant a product is, FDA established specific tests that enable either ‘water-resistant’ or ‘very water-resistant’ to be used instead of water/sweatproof, which no sunscreen product can achieve.
All Day Protection: No sunscreen provides protection all day long. It’s simply impossible. ‘All Day Protection’ sunscreens mislead consumers and promote skin cancer by providing a false sense of UV protection security.
How to protect yourself: Don’t buy products that use any of the terms listed above.
Ingredients
Petrochemical or Mineral?
Petrochemicals:
The FDA approved petrochemical sunscreens are the following: Avobenzone, also known as Parsol 1789, Octylmethoxycinnamate, oxybenzone, p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA), Cinoxate, Dioxybenzone, Ensulizole, Homosalate, Menthyl anthranilate, Octocrylene, Octyl dimethyl PABA, Octyl salicylate, Sulisobenzone, trolamine salicylate and recently approved terephthalylidene dicamphor sulfonic acid, which is also known as Mexoryl SX and marketed exclusively by L’Oreal under the Anthelios brand. L’Oreal owns the patent on Mexoryl.
Consumers should know that all of the petrochemical sunscreens can be absorbed through your skin and into your blood in quantities higher than any other petrochemical contaminant found in our environment, air or food. Petrochemical sunscreens have significant side effects as many mimic estrogen’s effects in our bodies. They often don’t biodegrade, accumulate in the watershed and can damage coral reef ecosystems. All are toxic, and by using these petrochemicals UV damage is traded for a measure of chemical damage instead.
Parents need to know the NONE of the petrochemical sunscreen active ingredients listed above are FDA approved for use on children and babies. In fact, none of these compounds are tested for SPF on children’s skin, so products that use these ingredients and are marketed as ‘baby’ formulas are misleading you.
How to protect yourself: Recognize that petrochemical sunscreens shouldn’t be used on children. Don’t purchase petrochemical-based ‘baby’ products. If you must use petrochemical sunscreen, don’t purchase products with SPFs higher than 30.
Minerals:
There are two FDA-approved mineral sunscreens: Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide. Zinc Oxide is the only ingredient approved for use on babies and children, and is also the FDA-approved active ingredient (to 50%) in most diaper rash crèmes which illustrates its safety.
Zinc oxide is better than titanium dioxide in sunscreens for the following four reasons:
- Zinc oxide has a broader UVA and UVB absorbance spectrum than Titanium dioxide, so it provides better UVA protection.
- Zinc oxide is safer because it creates fewer free radicals than Titanium dioxide.
- Zinc oxide is the only active ingredient approved for use on babies under 6 months of age.
- Zinc oxide is made from a critical mineral nutrient that’s also found in you vitamins, Titanium dioxide is made from a toxic heavy metal.
How to protect yourself: Choose zinc oxide sunscreens, particularly for your kids.
Mineral Sunscreens: Micronized vs. Nanoparticle?
Manufacturers and the media are clearly confused about particle sizing.
Nanoparticles are defined as having a diameter of less than 100 nanometers, (0.1 millionth of a meter) which is about the size of a virus.
Micronized particles are defined as having a diameter of less than 100 microns, (0.1 thousandth of a meter) which is about the width of a human hair.
Micronized mineral sunscreens have been on the market for decades, and have a massive amount of supporting safety data.
Nanoparticle mineral sunscreens are very new and have been marketed by chemical manufacturers as an innovative way to boost SPF and make mineral formulas less whitening. Whether or not they actually perform better in formulas is questionable. The problem with nano sunscreens is that safety of these particles is unknown, and some recent scientific studies, including one published last month in Scientific American, have demonstrated these particles can damage the ecosystem. Other potential issues include elevated skin penetration and free radical creation.
Manufacturers often market their nanoparticle sunscreens under the ‘micronized’ umbrella, since technically nano has been micronized very finely. Therefore nano is micronized but micronized is not nano. So, unfortunately, the only way you can tell if a manufacturer is not using nano, is if they say it’s non-nano.
How to protect yourself: Ask customer support if they use nanoparticle sunscreens – ask what the particle size is – if it’s less than 100nm, it is nano. It’s best to purchase sunscreens that say they are non-nano since nano is still micronized.
Ingredient Percentages
Sunscreen UV activity is related to the amount of active sunscreen ingredient in a formula and how well the formula distributes the active ingredient on your skin. Low concentrations generally do not perform as well as higher concentrations of active ingredients.
The upper limit approved by FDA for Zinc Oxide use in sunscreens is 25%.
The higher the percentage, the more likely the active ingredient will cover your skin, which is necessary for the best UV protection.
SPF testing is subjective and varies significantly depending upon the laboratory that does the testing. FDA does not require manufacturers to use independent testing laboratories, nor average their SPF testing trials if they use more than lab, so there’s clearly a conflict of interest, This policy allows manufacturers, particularly those with deeper pockets, to manipulate SPF testing data in their favor for marketing purposes, at the expense of a product’s safety. Last year the Environmental Working Group reported that 80% of marketed sunscreens do not perform to the rated SPF, but this is not surprising given that FDA gives companies incentive to inflate SPF values.
How to protect yourself: Look for manufacturers that use independent SPF testing labs, publish their SPF testing data online, and use a high percentage of zinc oxide in their formulas. If the active ingredient percentage looks low in comparison to SPF – the product may not perform as well as the SPF claim.
We hope you will now be able to better evaluate sunscreens in general. Kabana has created its products precisely with these issues in mind. We leave it to you as a consumer to determine whether or not we're doing a good job compared to our competitors.
Kabana Skin Care’s Green Screen® Organic Sunscreen contains 25% non-nanoparticle Zinc Oxide to provide you the best possible broad spectrum UVA and UVB protection. We do independent laboratory SPF testing and publish our results on our website.
The bottom line: Use mineral sunscreen. Green Screen has the most effective, safest, fully disclosed and understandable ingredients on the market. We use an independent SPF testing lab, publish our data and label SPF conservatively based on an industry leading active ingredient percentage. Of the vegetable ingredients that could be organically sourced, 86% of them are organic, 83% are certified organic.
We hope you will read our labels and understand why Green Screen sunscreen is the best for you and your family's health and well-being.
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