Beauty

[Shelbelle]

Mineral sunscreen also known as Physical sunscreen.  usually the actives are titanium oxide and/or zinc oxide

[Tommie1965]

Group 5 mi us 1 - By chemical-free I was thinking as natural as you can get but still be effective.

I can remember a presentation of a sunscreen where Jane Treacy was saying her husband - who hates any kind of chemicals on his skin - used it. Maybe it was a Josie Maran product.

Thank you everyone for the suggestions and everyone who answered- appreciate it

[Group 5 minus 1]

Most everything that is for the skin (health and beauty) has chemicals in it. If you read the ingredients and Google one or two of them you will find that they are chemicals.

[SilleeMee]

Asian chemical sunscreens use different ingredients than the ones made here. They are said to have gone through much stricter and more thorough testing to insure their safety. They don't use chemicals which destroy corals....no oxybenzone or BP-3.

It's unfortunate that the FDA has placed so many restrictions on what a sunscreen can contain, especially chemicals used in them. There are better alternatives than what is made within our borders. Mineral sunscreens are not for everyone. They can cause skin issues. The best sun protection doesn't come from a single source, for instance from sunscreen alone, but sun protection comes from using multiple forms of protection and that might include some form of chemical sunscreen or a combination of both a mineral and a chemical one plus using protective clothing.

[JudyL]

@Tommie1965 - I use a sunscreen by Josie Maran for the body that is a physical sunscreen.  Works well for me.  It's also reef friendly which is important to me.

[nycalady]

Alba or Coola

[on the bay]

@Tommie1965,

The only totally chemical free sunscreen I know of is plain zinc.

Not zinc oxide,(can cause breathing problems but "considered safe" by FDA.

Definitely not titanium dioxide which has concerns due to carcinogenic effects and is banned in Europe for food as of 2022 and they are considering banning it from other sources.

Zinc is what we used esp on our nose and shoulders as lifeguards. It is white and thick which makes it not as easy to use.

So I don't know a good answer either.

Will look forward to reading replies.

Right now I have an old can of Green Goddess organic mineral sunscreen.-(zinc oxide). that's the best I could find-2 years ago at Walmart cost &10, now about $30

everywhere!

[on the bay]

From the Environmental Working Group-

Sunscreen products are intended to be applied to the body every day, for a lifetime. The companies that make and sell sunscreen ingredients and products should test them thoroughly for potential short-term and long-term health effects. This includes toxicity testing for irritation and skin allergies, as well as testing for skin absorption and the potential to cause cancer, disrupt the hormone system and cause harm during reproduction and development.

In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration, which governs sunscreen safety, proposed its most recent updates to sunscreen regulations. It found that only two ingredients, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, could be classified as safe and effective, based on the currently available information. 

Twelve other ingredients were proposed as not generally recognized as safe and effective due to insufficient data: avobenzone, cinoxate, dioxybenzone, ensulizole, homosalate, meradimate, octinoxate, octisalate, octocrylene, oxybenzone, padimate O, and sulisobenzone. 

The FDA has required additional safety data because of health concerns and studies by the agency that show these ingredients can be absorbed through the skin. But in recent years, many studies have also raised concerns about endocrine-disrupting effects of three ingredients: homosalate, avobenzone and oxybenzone.

In 2021 the European Commission published preliminary opinions on the safety of three organic ultraviolet, or UV, filters, oxybenzone, homosalate and octocrylene. It found that two of them are not safe in the amounts at which they’re currently used. It proposed limiting concentration to 2.2 percent for oxybenzone and 1.4 percent for homosalate. 

U.S. sunscreen manufacturers are legally allowed to use these two chemicals at concentrations up to 6 and 15 percent, respectively. Hundreds of sunscreens made in the U.S. use them at concentrations far above the European Commission’s recommendations.

The ingredients oxybenzone, octinoxate, octisalate, octocrylene, homosalate and avobenzone are all systemically absorbed into the body after one use, according to the studies published by the FDA. The agency also found they could be detected on the skin and in the blood weeks after they had last been used. 

Other studies have reported finding  sunscreen ingredients in breast milk,urine and blood plasma samples. And it’s possible for sunscreen users to inhale ingredients in sunscreen sprays and ingest some of the ingredients they apply to their lips, so the ingredients must not be harmful to the lungs or internal organs.

This constant exposure to sunscreen chemicals raises concerns, especially because there is not enough safety data for most ingredients. We have even more concerns about ingredients such as oxybenzone, which many studies have linked to hormone disruption.

Active ingredient toxicity

This table outlines human exposure and hazard information for eight common FDA-approved sunscreen chemicals, often referred to as active ingredients because they provide UV protection. Sunscreen products typically include a combination of active ingredients, except for those formulated with zinc oxide.

Chemical	FDA 2019 proposed classification as safe and effective	Skin penetration	Hormone disruption	Skin allergy or other concerns
Oxybenzone	No	+	+	+
Octinoxate (Octyl methoxycinnamate)	No	+	+	+
Homosalate	No	+	+	+
Octisalate	No	+	–	–
Octocrylene	No	+	–	+
Avobenzone	No	+	+	+
Titanium dioxide	Yes	–	–	+ Inhalation concerns
Zinc oxide	Yes	–	–	+ Inhalation concerns

+ = evidence; – = no or weak evidence

[Goldengate8361]

Elta MD makes fantastic mineral sunscreens! (You can read reviews on Amazon). I love and will only use mineral sunscreens. I almost always have a terrible reaction to chemical sunscreens.