Top 6 Scary Sunscreen Ingredients You Need to Avoid

While the sun is getting warmer, shielding your skin from sunburn and UV harm is extremely necessary. Although slathering your skin with any SPF within arms reach may appear like a brilliant idea, numerous sunscreens are filled with some truly dubious ingredients that can negatively affect your skin and body, leading to serious health issues like hormone interruption, hypersensitive responses, and may even boost your risk of developing cancer.

Fortunately, not all SPF items are unsafe, and not all sunscreens are the same. There are two types of sunscreens: Sunblock, or physical sunscreen, which consists of regular minerals, including titanium zinc oxide and dioxide that cover the surface of your skin to physically restrain or reflect large amounts of the sun’s UVA and UVB rays.

Sunblock can be thick and chaotic to apply and may leave a white buildup that can obstruct pores and that would require rubbing to clear away unless you’re applying top-line physical SPF products.

On the other hand, there’s chemical sunscreen, which contains oxybenzone and octinoxate, which are absorbed into your skin, filtering and absorbing UV rays while securing further skin layers.

Chemical sunscreen can promote skin irritation and other unpleasant responses mainly because it’s absorbed. Moreover, these ingredients can create free radicals that damage your cells during sun exposure.

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1. Oxybenzone:

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Oxybenzone is a chemical that helps other chemicals be absorbed by your skin after being exposed to UV rays. When this chemical penetrates your skin, it can induce an allergic response that’s similar to eczema and that can extend beyond the exposed skin area and remain for a long time after you’re out of sunlight.

Experts are skeptical that oxybenzone can mess up your hormones, leading to a highly damaged endocrine system. In fact, according to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), this chemical is circulating within the bodies of 97% of Americans because it can build up faster than the human body can remove it.