By Sandee LaMotte, CNN
Just one fourth of sunscreens on retailer cabinets in the US ship protected and efficient safety in opposition to the dangerous rays of the solar, based on an annual report which analyzed greater than 2,200 sunscreens obtainable for buy in 2025.
“Our criteria include the ability of the sunscreen’s active ingredients to provide balanced protection against both UVA and UVB rays, as well as any hazardous chemical ingredients in the product,” mentioned David Andrews, appearing chief science officer on the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, a shopper group that has produced the annual sunscreen information since 2007.
Launched Tuesday, the 2025 Sunscreen Information lists the very best child and baby sunscreens, together with these with the very best “bang for the buck;” extremely rated each day use sunscreens, together with moisturizers with SPF; the very best lip balms with SPF; and the highest leisure sunscreens designed for out of doors actions similar to sports activities or spending time on the seaside.
“There are nearly 500 products we are recommending consumers seek out as their first option,” Andrews mentioned. “We want people to wear sunscreen and at the same time recognize there are other ways to protect their skin as well — seeking shade, wearing wide-brimmed hats, lightweight long-sleeve shirts and pants and covering up your feet are very effective ways, especially if you’re concerned about sunscreen ingredients.”
Selecting to not defend your pores and skin from the solar, an concept promoted by some Tiktok influencers, shouldn’t be an possibility, based on Dr. Kathleen Suozzi, a dermatologic surgeon at Yale College of Medication.
“Extensive research has shown that UV radiation from the sun is a significant cause of skin cancers such as melanoma. It’s really indisputable at this point,” Suozzi advised CNN in a previous interview. “UV radiation has both UVA and UVB, and we know that both of them damage the DNA in skin cells.”
Considerations with chemical sunscreens
Sunscreens are available two sorts, chemical and mineral. Chemical sunscreens are designed to be absorbed into the pores and skin as a chemical response absorbs ultraviolet radiation as vitality and disperses it as warmth.
Testing launched in 2019 by the US Meals and Drug Administration discovered seven chemical elements — avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene, ecamsule, homosalate, octisalate, and octinoxate — had been absorbed from the pores and skin into the bloodstream after a single day of use.
The focus of the seven chemical substances within the blood elevated every day after utility and remained above FDA security ranges per week later. Two of the chemical substances — homosalate and oxybenzone — had been nonetheless above security thresholds at day 21.
As soon as within the bloodstream, these chemical substances can enter waterways by way of wastewater, threatening coral reefs and aquatic life. Because of the rising devastation of their coral reefs, Hawaii; Key West, Florida; the US Virgin Islands; Bonnaire; Aruba; and Palau, an island within the Pacific, have banned using a number of chemical sunscreens, notably oxybenzone.
Oxybenzone has additionally been linked to decrease testosterone ranges in adolescent boys, hormone modifications in males, and shorter pregnancies and disrupted start weights in infants.
Nevertheless, using oxybenzone use has fallen dramatically, based on EWG’s 2025 Sunscreen Information launched Tuesday. As soon as in 70% of non-mineral sunscreens, oxybenzone is now in solely 9% of merchandise, Andrews mentioned.
The Private Care Merchandise Council, which represents sunscreen producers, disagreed with the report’s findings.
Security of mineral-based sunscreens
Mineral-based sunscreens work otherwise. As an alternative of being absorbed into the pores and skin, the minerals bodily deflect and block the solar’s rays. Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are the 2 FDA-approved mineral sunscreen elements, and they don’t seem to hurt marine ecosystems, Andrews mentioned.
Nevertheless, some mineral merchandise could include chemical “boosters” designed to artificially increase the solar safety issue (SPF), the report mentioned.
“Using chemical boosters may result in a lower concentration of active mineral ingredients at the expenses of consumer safety,” Andrews mentioned. “We need to guarantee these sunscreens are offering the SPF marketed on their labels in addition to balanced UVA and UVB safety.
A few of these boosters, such because the solvent butyloctyl salicylate, or BOS, take in UV rays very like chemical sunscreen elements, Andrews mentioned.
“Yet they’re marketed primarily as solvents that improve how a product feels on the skin and reduce the white cast that mineral sunscreens can leave behind,” he mentioned.
“BOS is structurally similar to octisalate, one of 12 chemical sunscreen ingredients the FDA has identified as needing more safety data,” Andrews added. “However, BOS is not regulated as an active ingredient and hasn’t undergone the same level of safety evaluation.”
EWG first raised issues about SPF boosters in an August 2016 letter to then–FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, urging the company to research “sunscreen ingredients that may enable manufacturers to advertise higher SPF values for their over-the-counter sunscreen products without offering users truly enhanced protection from UVA and UVB rays.”
The company also needs to examine any correlation “between protection from skin reddening, immunosuppression, long-term skin damage and cancer,” the letter mentioned. Thus far, no motion has been taken by the FDA, Andrews mentioned.
Further shopper safety proposed by FDA nonetheless in limbo
The FDA proposed up to date guidelines for sunscreen security in 2019. Business was requested to offer further testing on 12 sunscreen chemical substances of concern, together with the seven which FDA testing confirmed are simply absorbed into the bloodstream. That has but to be completed, Andrews mentioned.
The FDA proposal additionally requested producers to check spray sunscreen merchandise to show aerosolized chemical substances can’t be inhaled into the deep lung — that testing has additionally not occurred, he mentioned.
“When the FDA tested aerosol cosmetics a few years ago, they found some products did have very small particle sizes that could be inhaled in the deep lung and lead to possible health harms,” Andrews mentioned. “The same concern applies to spray sunscreens.”
In response to the US Environmental Safety Company, inhalation of such particles may cause severe well being results in people at biggest threat, similar to “people with heart or lung disease, people with diabetes, older adults and children (up to 18 years of age).”
But aerosol sunscreens stay fashionable amongst customers — 26% of the sunscreens examined had been sprays — regardless of potential inhalation dangers and the problem of offering even and satisfactory protection with a twig, Andrews mentioned.
“An Australian study found that even under light breeze conditions of say, 6- to 10-miles-an-hour, a significant portion of an aerosol sunscreen just blows away,” he mentioned. “I was at a soccer game last weekend, and when someone sprayed sunscreen, I felt like it went over the entire field. I’m not convinced they got any sunscreen on themselves.”
The FDA additionally referred to as for a cap of 60 SPF on sunscreen merchandise within the 2019 proposal, saying any profit over 60 is extraordinarily minor. Subsequently labeling sunscreens at ranges greater than 60 SPF might be deceptive customers by offering a false sense of solar safety, the FDA mentioned. That too, has not been completed, and customers proceed to spend cash on these merchandise, Andrews mentioned.
“One of the primary drivers of consumer purchasing is the highest SPF number possible,” he mentioned. “Consumers are not getting the message that higher SPF values don’t offer a clear benefit.”
CNN reached out to the Division of Well being and Human Companies, which oversees the FDA, for remark however didn’t hear again earlier than publication.
Initially Revealed: Might 20, 2025 at 10:40 AM PDT
