The Problem with Vegan Sunscreen.
How much do you really know about your vegan sunscreen?
“Did you put on your sunscreen?”
How many times have you heard that question and kept walking? That was me- until the day my dermatologist called with a positive test result for a basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. Turns out my long sleeves, hat and shades weren’t enough protection.
The skin cancer diagnosis proved I had to become more serious about sun protection and had to introduce sunscreen to my daily routine.
It seems like an easy fix, but I have high standards for my products, so choosing a sunscreen is complicated.
Here are some of the decisions you need to think through:
formula -mineral or chemical
health - is any of this stuff safe for my body?
environment - reef safe, ocean safe
application - lotion, spray, stick, gel
protection – SPF
coverage – UVA/UBA
cruelty-free or vegan
The essential products in my daily skincare routine need to align with my core values so I opted for a vegan formula, thinking this label would give me a sunscreen that is safe for my body, with no animal ingredients, that was cruelty-free, and kind to the environment. What I found were three glaring contradictions.
Contradiction #1 Vegan and cruelty-free are not interchangeable.
Vegan describes the ingredients and means that a product does not contain any animal-derived ingredients such as honey, beeswax, lanolin, etc.
Cruelty-free refers to the testing process and not the ingredients.
Vegan products can be tested on animals and cruelty-free products can be made with animal products.
Takeaway: I’m looking for a sunscreen that’s both vegan and cruelty-free.
Contradiction #2 Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you or the environment.
Vegan sunscreens can be chemical based. This means the active ingredients (the ingredients that protect you from the sun) in chemical sunscreens are dangerous to you and the environment.
The biggest offender is a common sunscreen ingredient called oxybenzone. It’s been linked to the destruction of coral reefs and as a hormone disruptor in both animals and humans.
There are many other troubling chemical compounds in sunscreens manufactured in the U.S. Chemicals such as Octinoxate, Homosalate, and Octisalate are commonly found in sunscreens at toxic levels.
This raises huge health & environmental concerns.
A concern echoed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in 2019 the FDA reported that “only two ingredients, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, could be classified as safe and effective, based on the currently available information.” Both of these are the active ingredients found in mineral sunscreens.
Takeaway: I want my sunscreen to be a mineral formula that is vegan and cruelty-free. READ THE LABELS for hidden chemical ingredients dangerous to me and the environment.
Contradiction #3 The packaging, stupid!
Most Vegan sunscreens are sold in plastic tubes or containers. Plastic pollution has a direct and deadly effect on wildlife. If by choosing vegan you are against using animal products and animal cruelty, it’s time to rethink buying products in plastic containers.
If you are like me and looking for a sunscreen that is vegan, cruelty-free, and kind to the environment the container must be zero-waste (meaning either compostable or reusable glass or tin containers – NO plastic, unless it’s returnable).
Takeaway: A vegan, cruelty-free, mineral sunscreen in zero-waste packaging is what I want.
For a thoughtful consumer, choosing a sunscreen is complicated. I’ve narrowed the parameters of my search to a vegan, cruelty-free, and mineral formula sunscreen that comes in a zero-waste container. My first stop is the Environmental Working Group guides on sun care products.
If you find a product that you love and it comes in a plastic container, email, direct message, or call the company to inquire about their plans to go zero waste. Your voice matters- don’t be afraid to use it!
Interested in helping us create the best sunscreen ever? Take our 2-minute sunscreen survey!
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Resources Worth Sharing:
Environmental Working Group - https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/ The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards. For guides on beauty and sun care products
Litterbase - https://litterbase.awi.de/ summarizes results from 2,788+ scientific studies in understandable global maps and figures and opens scientific knowledge on marine litter to the public.
Samantha L Schnieder MD and Henry W Lim MD at Department of Dermatology at Henry Ford Hospital, via Science Direct: Review of environmental effects of oxybenzone and other sunscreen active ingredients
