Safe Suncare

Sunlight is essential for human health and well-being. The health benefits of sunlight include generating the production of vitamin D, supporting bone health, lowering blood pressure, healing inflammation, improving sleep quality, preventing disease, uplifting your mood, increasing energy, and promoting good mental health.

Ironically, some of the products that have been sold to us to protect us from sun damage are toxic and have endocrine-disrupting, cancer-causing effects from ingredients like homosalate, avobenzone, and oxybenzone.  Essentially, the products protecting us from skin cancer can actually give us cancer.

Studies show that some chemical sunscreen ingredients are absorbed into the bloodstream, surpassing safe levels.  What sun care product ingredients are toxic?

• Oxybenzone. The most worrisome sunscreen active ingredient is oxybenzone, according to publicly available scientific research
• Octinoxate (Octyl methoxycinnamate) 
• Homosalate
• Octisalate
• Octocrylene
• Avobenzone
• Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide

Don’t forget that our bodies produce a natural sunscreen- melanin, a pigment that enables humans to tan. Melanin is made in the skin, our largest organ of the body.  Melanin absorbs the UV rays that initiate vitamin D synthesis.  Since we all have varying levels of natural melanin, we need to be sure we are able to take in some sun for its many health benefits and also protect ourselves from overexposure.