By Devon Kelley | Yahoo Beauty |
When you’re rushing out the door in the morning, remembering to apply (and later reapply) sunscreen is hard enough. But even if you do slather up religiously, doing so effectively is not as simple as it may seem. Turns out sunscreens are hampered by a range of problems — from ineffective formulas to toxic ingredients — that keep the products from doing their job properly. That’s why the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) just released its 11th annual Guide to Sunscreens, reviewing and rating hundreds of lotions and sprays so that you don’t have to get burned to realize that your product of choice just doesn’t work.
This year, EWG rated nearly 1,500 sunscreens, nearly twice the number included in last year’s edition.
Of those, the study found 166 beach and sport sunscreens that met all of EWG’s criteria, including All Terrain TerraSport SPF 30, Beautycounter Protect All Over Sunscreen Lotion SPF 30, and Coppertone Water Babies Pure & Simple Sunscreen Stick SPF 30; 19 top-scoring lotions for kids, such as Badger Baby Sunscreen Cream SPF 30 and Aveeno Baby Continuous Protection Sensitive Skin Lotion Sunscreen SPF 50; and 14 kids’ sunscreens that ranked at the bottom of the heap due to unsafe ingredients or excessively high SPF numbers, or simply for being sprays, which pose inhalation risks and make it easy to miss important spots.
Among those worst-rated are Banana Boat Kids Sunscreen Lotion SPF 100, Coppertone Foaming Lotion Sunscreen Kids Wacky Foam SPF 70, and Neutrogena Pure & Free Baby Sunscreen SPF 60+. You can find all product ratings at EWG’s sunscreen guide website.
