Fallacy of Trusting Sunscreen Marketing
We recently received an email from a company interested in educating its customers about sunscreens. It was nicely laid out and completely wrong. How can they be so wrong? Either they want to be ignorant because it's good for marketing or they stopped reading 40 years ago. Let’s go through each of the items one-by-one.
1) The physical sunscreens, zinc oxide and titanium don’t primarily work by reflecting UV. They reflect visible light relatively well, that’s why they make paint out of titanium dioxide, because it's really, really white. But, in the UV range, and this is especially true for zinc oxide, the minerals absorb the UV light, just like organic sunscreens do.
They state chemical sunscreens need to be absorbed into the skin to work. That’s simply wrong. Sunscreen doesn’t know where it is applied. It's going to do its job on the skin, in the skin or on your clothing. It does not matter. If the UV hits it, the sunscreen is absorbing it.
2) The common ingredients they list include oxybenzone. This is clickbait since virtually all major and legit minor sunscreen companies have stopped using oxybenzone. Sure, it's out there in some legacy products but it's disappearing. Marketing about not using oxybenzone is like advertising you don’t use plutonium, no one does.
3) They provide the deep insight that mineral sunscreens are gentler. Irritation and acne issues from sunscreens, or any product for that matter, are most likely caused by the other ingredients in the formulation. Plenty of mineral sunscreens come in oily pore clogging formulations.
4) And here’s the big one on their label: needs to be reapplied 15 or 20 minutes before sun exposure. You know why it says this?! Because the FDA requires all sunscreens to state it. The reality is that sunscreens are effective the minute you apply them. That language is there to encourage people to put the sunscreen on before going outside, not because it won't work otherwise.
5) It also states, “May require more frequent application.” How often you have to apply sunscreen is completely dictated by the formulation. They know this, but are hoping you are completely misinformed.
6) Finally, they state, “mineral sunscreens are biodegradable.” Think about that for a minute. They are literally rocks. Sure, give them a few billion years and they will biodegrade. At least with zinc oxide, it will eventually dissolve, but titanium dioxide is here for the long run. The irony is that the “chemical” sunscreens are organic molecules and actually do biodegrade.