![]() I do wonder if our own bias on wanting the highest possible protection is causing brands to try and get their product to test as that. I also feel as though we should maybe rethink chasing SPF 50 because - if you're applying the correct amount - SPF 30 isn't bad when it comes to protection against skin cancer (it's not pictured but 50 will allow 2 photons into the skin). Whilst it's an attractive idea, it was brought to my attention that in recent years both Nivea in New Zealand and La Roche-Posay (owned by L'oreal) in the US both had their products fail to live up to their advertised levels of protection, as did Hawaiian Tropic and Boots Soltan formulas here in the UK. Perhaps this is best left to the pharmaceutical giants? This would mean the company itself has more experience in sunscreen formulation (Purito's issue was that they didn't have this expertise so relied on the manufacturer to choose the filters and conduct the testing) and can afford for more than one test to be conducted. I have to say that a lot of this made me wonder if it's really feasible for every indie brand to be bringing out a sunscreen. It seems the industry has a reactionary approach: pulling products to retest them (in Purito's case, this was done by a 3rd party at its own expense, but the Korean Food and Drug Agency is now conducting wide independent testing of all products made by the same manufacturers) and taking them off the market if they fail. I have to say that this left me feeling a bit lost. Whilst some brands are quite forthcoming about their testing, this kind of transparency is rare. In this context I'm not surprised we're seeing these discrepancies. I suppose I'd just assumed that repeat tests would be conducted to reach an advertised value on an product as important as sunscreen, and this is not the case, largely due to the expense of in vivo (on human) testing. There are a number of resources that really helped me in my understanding of how sunscreen testing works and why it often yields wildly different results - I recommend checking out content put out by Lab Muffin Beauty and The Eco Well. So, where do we go from here? Who can we trust? I don't have all the answers but let's explore it. This isn't a new issue (I've since found several reputable articles from 2016 discussing that half of all sunscreens on US shelves failed to meet their SPF claims) but the controversy really came to light following Purito's 'SPF 50' testing at about an SPF 19 in a blind independent test (the brand itself also re-tested it and appeared to get a third value). Sure, I assumed that sometimes manufacturing errors must lead to bad batches but I didn't realise that a company only needs to run a single test to slap 'SPF 50' on their product. I have to hold my hands up and say I've been a little naive on this issue. ![]() Over the past few months, the skincare industry has been shaken with sunscreens (from both Eastern and Western brands) failing to live up to their advertised level of protection. All opinions remain my own and please refer to my Disclosure Page for further detail. My blog has Skimlinks and RewardStyle installed to automatically monetise purchases of products I link on my blog, therefore this post may contain affiliate links. In addition I have / have had a brand relationship with Evy, Keep Cool, Coola, CosRx and La Roche-Posay (gifting). Advertisement information: this post discusses items gifted to me with no obligation to share them (marked *).
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