Since 2007, when the Environmental Working Group (EWG) published its first Sunscreen Guide, many sun protection products sold in the U.S. have become safer and federal regulators have cracked down on some of the worst phony marketing claims. EWG's investigation of approximately 650 beach and sport sunscreens for our 13th annual guide found that serious concerns remain.
This year the group said it analyzed the ingredients and performance of more than 1,300 products with sun protection factor, or SPF; 750 of those are marketed as beach and sport sunscreens. The analysis involves only a fraction of the sunscreen products sold in the United States today, which the FDA estimates to number over 12,000.
As EWG has reported in the past, over 60% of the products evaluated do not offer adequate sun protection or contain potentially harmful chemicals. What makes this year's report different, said Director of Healthy Living Science Nneka Leiba, is that the 2019 products were judged using FDA safety guidelines proposed in February, that the standards for the 2019 guide were so much higher. “The fact that 60% of the market seemingly wouldn’t be considered safe and effective by the FDA is a huge deal.”
EWG has rated Love Sun Body 100% Natural Origin Mineral Sunscreens the best score of 1. This reflects the degree of both UV protection from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation and the hazards of all the ingredients on the label.