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It's possible but locals and I imagine most tourists actually buy sunscreen in Hawaii and it's only legal to sell reef safe sunscreen there.

https://www.hawaii-guide.com/blog/hawaii-new-reef-safe-sunsc...

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As a tourist, I buy it there. That way I know it's reef-safe without having to look at ingredients, and the few dollars spent vs. carrying a bottle through an airport is well worth it.

Many of the dive boats and hotels will offer sunscreen out of a bulk pump, so depending on what you do on the islands, you probably don't need much on your own - just a small tube for your group will do.

You're not technically allowed to bring the other stuff onto the islands, though in my experience they don't check, I flew into Maui from Japan one time and brought sunscreen (as you might imagine the ingredients are better across the board, including for reefs) and this wasn't checked at the agriculture scanner.

Point is, the regulations to keep those ingredients out of the reefs have been mostly successful.

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