The American Cancer Society and most doctors agree: wearing sunscreen is one of the most important (if not the single most important) step you can take to prevent skin cancer from UV rays. Sunscreen shouldn’t just be applied daily, it should be re-applied every two hours, or sooner if you are exposed to water. Some social media content has suggested that the best course of action for your health is to avoid sunscreen altogether — but nothing could be further from the truth, according to experts.
With that said, there is also more talk than ever before about the ingredients in our sunscreen, with an emphasis on the importance of avoiding certain ingredients that may be harmful.
Kyle Fitzgerald, a clean-living expert, shared the sunscreens and ingredients to avoid due to their ‘harmful chemicals’ and potentially ‘cancer-causing’ ingredients. There’s still a lot of misinformation out there (including that sunscreen can actually cause cancer, which is not proven to be true). But if you are interested in buying safer sunscreen formulations this summer, here are two sunscreen ingredients that you may want to skip.
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1. Avobenzone
There are some concerns that Avobenzone may cause skin irritation and that it degrades quickly when exposed to sunlight unless it is stabilized with a photo stabilizer like oxybenzone (more on that chemical in a bit). Some environmental concerns have also come up with Avobenzone. It’s important to note, though, that there is no strong or conclusive scientific proof that avobenzone causes cancer in humans when used in sunscreen.
2. Oxybenzone
Although there is no direct proof that oxybenzone causes cancer in humans, there are some scientific concerns based on lab and animal studies of the chemical. In rats and mice, oxybenzone has been linked to hormone disruption, changes in reproductive organs, and developmental toxicity — all of which may contribute to cancer.
If you are concerned about the ingredients in chemical sunscreens, a good alternative is mineral-based sunscreens that are labeled “oxybenzone-free” and “reef-safe.”
