4 things to know about the new sunscreen ingredient the FDA approved | Hacker News Reader

4 things to know about the new sunscreen ingredient the FDA approved

npr.org

99 pointsmikhael46 comments

Bemotrizinol is the ingredient being discussed.

If you're looking for a specific product to try, check out Ombrelle and also La Roche-Posay's Anthelios line. I share this as a Canadian (bemotrizinol has been available here for years), but check the ingredients because it may vary by country because of regulations.

Aside: I did a bunch of sunscreen research some time ago for my family. I like the non-absorbing/non-reactive aspect of mineral screens but settled on a chemical screen and bemotrizinol seemed favoured but we landed instead on the Kinesys brand of sprays which we love because they're very waterproof and sweatproof in our experience but they feel like almost nothing. YMMV.

Synthesized from hydroxyphenyl-triazines (HPTs). HPTs were invented to protect materials like automotive paints, aerospace coatings, and heavy-duty plastics from solar degradation.

It doesn't seem to bioaccumulate in marine organisms despite the fact that it doesn't biodegrade. This seems to be due to the sheer size of the compound making it not easily cross the biological membranes. It does however accumulate on lake and ocean bed sediments so there are still some long term concerns.

Overall it's environmental profile seems like a huge step up from previous classes of sunscreen chemicals but it's not perfect either.

Sadly, you’ll have to wait for those brands in the US.

> DSM-Firmenich has exclusive rights to market bemotrizinol in the U.S. for 18 months. It will be sold under the brand name Parsol Shield.

Well, you could have and still can buy them shipped from other countries on sites like eBay. Shame it has to come to this in the land of the free, however.

I guess I’m unsure if the FDA approval makes importing these legal.

I also imagine that it’s not really worth doing just to get a specific brand in terms of cost.

An 18-month exclusive period is annoying but not the end of the world.

Tpu were free to bid competitively to have exclusive rights for your company. What's the problem?

Thank you for sharing your experience. Any idea If I search for Kinesys spray product on the American Amazon site will it be the same? What are the active ingredients?

Dunno. Brands definitely change their ingredients to conform to national health/drug regs so I’d inquire via their US site. kinesysactive.com

Anthelios line still contains homosalate in a concentration 20x higher than recommended by EU. I do like that brand a lot though.

+1 for La Roche - my daughter has fair sensitive skin and burns easily, its the best she finds (in Australia)

why not just get the least obtrusive physical sunscreen like "clear" thinksport?

My fear is that all of these chemical based ones increase the rates of disease in susceptible populations which is hard to detect

The large physical size of the compound means it has trouble passing through biological membranes. This is why it has really low toxicity and doesn't bioaccumulate despite the fact that it doesn't biodegrade over time.

It does seem to accumulate on lake and ocean floors though. I think the larger concern is not on human or animal health but on long term ecological consequences which are harder to study

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48507024

and related large discussion this week:

European sunscreens are safer than American (2024)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503940

This topic has been posted at about the same time in another thread, but neither has any comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48523165

Would have liked to hear about the safety profile for marine life that this has compared to other chemical sunscreens.

Cursory googling led to a bunch of commercial sites calling it reef safe and they mostly reference this article: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-3195-4

I’m not paying for access to this and can’t be bothered to pirate it, I’m going to just believe the front page of Google

BEMT is the first new ingredient allowed by the FDA since the 1990s. It's meaningful but a very narrow decision. The FDA still has not approved any of the following sunscreens that have been widely used outside of the US, in some cases for decades:

- DHHB / Uvinul A Plus

- EHT / Uvinul T150

- MBBT / Tinosorb M

- Iscotrizinol / Uvasorb HEB

- Drometrizole trisiloxane - Mexoryl XL

- Methoxypropylamino cyclohexenylidene ethoxyethylcyanoacetate - Mexoryl 400

- Polysilicone-15 - Parsol SLX

- Disodium phenyl dibenzimidazole tetrasulfonate - Neo Heliopan AP

- Tris-biphenyl triazine - Tinosorb A2B

- Phenylene bis-diphenyltriazine - TriAsorB

- Diethylhexyl syringylidene malonate (photostabilizer)

If you live in the US, you are quite literally taking a risk with your health using US-made sunscreens. Luckily brands like Beauty of Joseon (Korean) and many others are readily available through sites like Yamibuy.

No one cares more about sun protection than Asian women living in SoCal. My wife and her friends usually use Korean or Japanese brands that they buy here in the states. Seems to work just fine.

There is no risk with using zinc oxide 24%. It works too well and is safe.

The risk is with chemical sunscreens having hormone disrupting effects, although bemotrizinol is expected to be safer in this regard, especially if it's not stacked with older harmful chemicals.

Yes, if you're savvy enough to know to stick to sunscreens that contain zinc oxide as the only ingredient (I don't think most people are), and don't mind looking like a ghost (the white cast) or getting white marks on your clothes, this is a safe and effective option. If you aren't checking the ingredients lists carefully, like most people aren't, and you don't know that most sunscreen-containing products in the US are hormone disruptors, like most people don't, your health is at risk.

What is your belief with regard to bemotrizinol in this matter?

You are taking a risk with your health by importing sun screen that has not been FDA approved.

It may surprise you to learn that there are countries that have better laws and regulations than the US.

Such as? Most of Europe has far less regulations when it comes to sunscreen, as it is classified as cosmetics not drugs.

I guess this is the reason why the sunscreens from haruharu are now suddenly available in amazon

certain long clothes allows for skipping sunscreen entirely in perpetuity

This isn't realistic for something likeriding your bike where you get lots of sun on your face and limbs.

The limbs you can deal with, at least. I've done century rides in 100°F+ weather wearing UPF 50 sleeves the whole way... it's actually quite nice because you dip them in water, and they end up staying saturated for a long time. Together with the airflow from the ride it keeps you cool as well as protecting from the sun

Unless you are talking about a Burqa, i think that is not true.

Also a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thawb

While this is commonly brought up as a religious issue, religion obviously predates sunscreen but not sunburn, so it could've originally been a practical reason --- elevated to religious dogma --- why it is customary from that part of the world to wear highly concealing clothing.

Your clothes still need to have a certain SPF, and you're not gonna wear gloves when 100 outside are you?

Just about any shirt is going to have a higher spf/upf than any normal sunscreen. Also who puts sunscreen on their hands??

A long sleeve sunshirt with a hood or better yet a floppy hat is where it’s at. I have a couple of the Colombia PFG ones that I wear for working outside, though I’d like to see if I can find something cotton instead since I’m not a huge fan of synthetic fibers.

I put sunscreen on my hands or I will have completely burnt hands. There's many of us who cant have more than about an hour in direct sunlight (and sometimes much less) before redness and soon burning occurs.

Who puts sunscreen on their hands? People in the sun who want to avoid wrinkles and burns and skin cancer on their hands.

If it's exposed skin, it gets sunscreen.

Nearly everyone I know puts sunscreen on their hands. Here in Australia, the world melanoma capital, sun safety is drilled into you as a kid, to the extent that "no hat no play" used to be official policy in most schools.

Pretty much this

Also for the other comments there are gloves and face masks but I think most people do fine without them unless you're working outside

For the nerds here working indoors during the hottest times of the day... they may need more sun than they get really, rather than blocking it with toxic sunscreens (depends on where they live?)

While generally true, it's worth remembering that thin shirts can have an SPF as low as 50 or so, which isn't much.

It means only 2% of the harmful rays (UVA) are getting through the shirt or alternatively the skin under the shirt can spend 50 times as long in the sun as it could without any protection.

Correction: UVB, not UVA.

Correction: the standard used for clothing is UPF, not SPF. They're similar, but there are differences.

SPF is logarithmic so high numbers can be misleading. The FDA has recently banned labeling above SPF 60 for this reason. Doctors usually recommend 30

A typical tshirt is closer to SPF 7, depending on color and weight.

Just from basic logic this has to be false. Maybe there are some translucent t-shirts that are SPF 7 but my skin always reacts much more to sun exposed parts that have SPF applied than it ever did under t-shirt. And no i use high quality SPF50 and reapply.

That sounds right, but SPF 50 shirts are readily available, and at least the ones made from polyester are cheap.

I put sunscreen on my hands.

People who don't enjoy sunburns on their hands put sunscreen on their hands.

Staying behind UV protective glass panes while browsing Hacker News does the same.

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