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Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

valisure.com

131–140 of 309 posts

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#131
post #2

So this is bad, obviously, but I want to plug Valisure and consumerlab both. For whatever reason there’s so little testing out there for both generic drugs and vitamins and supplements, and both of these guys really do have our backs. I’m very happy to support both to be doing what I feel like the FDA with more funding should be doing themselves.

> I’m very happy to support both to be doing what I feel like the FDA with more funding should be doing themselves.

IMHO, I prefer an organization like Valisure over the FDA any day. Democratic governments must represent all of their constituents which means there will always be a path (pressure groups, fundraising, etc.) for corporate interests to get outcomes they want under the guise of lobbying their representatives.

When the organization doing the checking is actually independent and setup for the sole purpose of their mission I personally feel much more confident in the findings.

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#133
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are benzene-free sunscreen products on the market and J&J could sell such products, but instead they decide not to in order to make more profit.

why would they add benzene to products? how does adding it make it cheaper to increase profits? Its not like some shady benzene dealer pays J&J to sprinkle it in, but only at really low levels (2-6 ppm). Its not like they chose benzene as an active ingredient over zinc oxide. Engineers are asked all the time on ways to save money. Did they skip a processing step? is their process control not optimized? Of course they…

They don’t add anything to their products. Someone in China submits the lowest bid to make the thing, passing on sweatshop savings to J&J. So how then does the manufacturer make a profit? By skimping on the raw materials.

The root cause isn’t the supply chain or transparency or QA or whatever. It’s the attractiveness of too-good-to-be-true deals.

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#134

My family recently went through the search for a decent sunscreen and settled on this link for useful info about which sunscreens have nasty chemicals: https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/ Our search was not exhaustive (and I can't really vouch for the link that was used) so if you have a better link, please don't keep it a secret.

ironically after combing through EWG to look at sunscreens, came to the conclusion that the absolute most conservative approach is to use mineral sunscreens with non-nano zinc or titanium particles. brands such as badger and raw elements are in that category, but they often leave an undesirable white cast. which leads one to tinted versions (that contain natural pigment to make the white cream instead skin tone color).

but guess what, after an exhaustive search over a couple years that led to Raw Elements daily moisturizer with SPF 30, it turns out Raw Elements is in this list of affected products! guess you just can't win!

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#136
post #4

Pretty interesting. Some of the products where benzene was detected don't even have anything volatile on their list of active ingredients. "Ethical Zinc Lotion", is just supposed to be 22% zinc oxide, with no Octocrylene, Oxybenzone, etc.

At 22% zinc oxide, you're going to have a layer of white film all over you which most people prefer not to have that look.

tinted mineral suncreens containing iron oxides and other natural pigments can be tan / skin tone but still contain only zinc or titanium as active ingredients.

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#137
Haven’t seen anyone point this out but it helped me filter out anything in my cabinet pretty quickly: none of the sunscreens with >2ppm benzene have SPF <50. In fact there’s only one actual sunscreen in high end of the list with SPF 50, the rest are 60+. Interesting that this also seems to correlate, in addition to the spray and brand trends.

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#138
post #66

What if skin cancer was actually caused by sun screen? Wouldn't that be ironic, don't ya think?

It might be caused by using the wrong sunscreen, but there are plenty of products that are safer. The Environmental Working Group has a good list: https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/

Raw Elements is one of the main brands you'd pick if you use EWG as your sole resource in analyzing compositions, and Raw Elements is on this list of affected products. So EWG may not be enough.

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#139
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live at altitude (~8000 ft) and have very fair skin. I burn within 20 minutes of being in direct sunlight. So, I’m not sure what it is I’m supposed to do.

I have very fair skin and used to burn easily, but now I don’t wear sunscreen 99% of the time I would have in the past. I just make sure to go outside regularly (starting in the winter months, here in the northern hemisphere) and expose my body to the sun, all year, and not just during vacation months. UV intensity changes with the seasons. Expose your skin to the sun when UVs are lower and your skin will adjust to t…

The idea that you simply need to tan or lay out in the sun to become resistant to skin cancer is a fallacy. That's not how your body works. There is chemical damage to your DNA taking place that your body is actively repairing, but your repair mechanism isn't perfect. There is an inherent error rate. Increase exposure to sun, you are more likely to roll the dice and have a damaged cell that evades detection by your repair mechanisms, and all cells that come from this one damaged cell will also have this mutation that makes them invisible to your defense mechanisms. these cells can slough off the mass and slip into your circulatory system and take root elsewhere in your body. Bob Marley died of skin cancer, and he was plenty tan.

Re: Benzene detected in many sunscreen products

#140
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affected products (starting on page 12): https://www.valisure.com/wp-content/uploads/Valisure-Citizen... Products that aren't affected: https://www.valisure.com/wp-content/uploads/Attachment-A-Tab...

>Fruit of the Earth - Gel - Aloe Vera Gel - 2.78 2.94* (ppm Benzene) Aloe Vera Gel? Sounds like straight up terrible quality standards to get benzene in an Aloe Vera gel. Stuff like like this makes me hesitant to use any product

The less chemicals you use, the better. Use simple soaps and deoderants, etc.
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