In the US it’s cheap but unregulated and full of shit that’s terrible for you. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for stuff that’s better but still not up to the standards of most other countries. I learned this by getting a chemical burn in my eye from sunscreen… meant for my face.
US sunscreen is way worse than sunscreen in other parts of the world like the EU. It doesn’t block the harmful radiation as well. The reason is that it’s more strictly regulated in the US. IIRC it’s not considered a cosmetic product but instead it’s a medical product.
As such it’s subject to much stricter regulation and requires much more (expensive) testing before being allowed on the market. Due to this it’s considered too expensive to introduce the newer, more advanced sunscreen products in the US so you’re stuck with the older, crappier sunscreen.
I’m not sure I’d call US sunscreens way worse (they are still very effective at blocking UVB, just not UVA as effectively), but there are definitely better options abroad. There definitely aren’t many options; that’s part of why Hawaii banning two common sunscreen ingredients for marine toxicity reasons was such a big deal.
Cheap is not the case everywhere. In Germany it’s cheap, in the Netherlands it’s much more expensive and in Croatia a bottle is like 25 Euro
In the US it’s cheap but unregulated and full of shit that’s terrible for you. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for stuff that’s better but still not up to the standards of most other countries. I learned this by getting a chemical burn in my eye from sunscreen… meant for my face.
It’s the exact opposite actually.
US sunscreen is way worse than sunscreen in other parts of the world like the EU. It doesn’t block the harmful radiation as well. The reason is that it’s more strictly regulated in the US. IIRC it’s not considered a cosmetic product but instead it’s a medical product.
As such it’s subject to much stricter regulation and requires much more (expensive) testing before being allowed on the market. Due to this it’s considered too expensive to introduce the newer, more advanced sunscreen products in the US so you’re stuck with the older, crappier sunscreen.
I’m not sure I’d call US sunscreens way worse (they are still very effective at blocking UVB, just not UVA as effectively), but there are definitely better options abroad. There definitely aren’t many options; that’s part of why Hawaii banning two common sunscreen ingredients for marine toxicity reasons was such a big deal.
The USA is the Wild West when it comes to safety standards of any product.
Oh, that’s bad. Made me think of this sunscreen and in Robocop 2.