Petrochemical Exposure: Petroleum-based Sunscreens are Public Enemy #1

Summary:

Limiting exposure to petrochemicals is increasingly on the minds of consumers everywhere. People are eating organic, drinking purified water and seeking clean air, but often neglect the major source of petrochemical exposure; personal care products. Petroleum-based sunscreens containing benzene-based hydrocarbons such as avobenzone, mexoryl, oxybenzone, etc. are public enemy #1 in terms of exposure levels given that consumers put massive amounts of these products on their bodies daily.

Body:

Concerned about your health?  Lately, healthcare is on everyone’s mind. More and more people like you are paying attention to avoiding petrochemical residues in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe, yet many common products routinely ruin all the effort and money we spend pursuing a healthy, clean lifestyle. Personal care products often escape the same scrutiny applied to things we ingest, but need equal attention because many of the chemicals that go on our skin also end up in our bodies.

Petroleum-based sunscreens are public enemy #1 on the exposure list given that no other personal care product promotes higher levels of benzene-based petrochemical absorption during a single application. Consider the following example:

You go to the beach for an afternoon, applying the recommended amount of 1 ounce of sunscreen to protect the skin that’s not already covered by your swimsuit.  

1 ounce is the equivalent of 30 grams of sunscreen product.  

If you’re using an SPF 30 formula that does not use mineral actives, it will typically contain about 30% petroleum-based active ingredients – that’s 9 grams of petrochemicals you’re putting on your skin per application.

Think it just stays on your skin?  Wrong!  Depending on the medical study, 60-80% of these chemicals get absorbed internally – into your blood, organs, nervous system and tissue.  That’s conservatively more than 5 grams getting into your body, or worse, your children’s developing bodies; and these chemicals are regulated as drugs by FDA precisely because they are deemed toxic and have significant side effects.

Surprised about complete-body exposure with a product you only put on your skin? That’s understandable until you consider that exposure to these chemicals is a relatively new event from an evolutionary perspective; our skin has evolved over millennia to be an excellent barrier for keeping dust and pathogens out and life-giving water in, but skin exposure to petrochemicals is very new. The past 100 years simply hasn’t been enough time for this critical organ to develop good barrier properties. Petrochemicals easily pass through into your blood, organs, nervous system and tissue.

This is bad. During the past several years, scientists worldwide have reported many problems petrochemical sunscreens cause: they fail to biodegrade in the environment and can be measured in our water supply; they feminize fish in ecosystems and disrupt natural reproductive cycles; they kill reef corals and have been outlawed in most tropical aquatic parks including those in Mexico; they increase free radical damage to our DNA; they’re associated with several forms of cancer, including breast cancer. Last year the United States Center for Disease Control published a study that measured significant quantities of oxybenzone that get constantly excreted in the urine of 98.6% of 2,517 people tested which means these petrochemicals bioaccumulate; and they mimic estrogen in our own bodies.

The estrogen issue is particularly disturbing. Petroleum sunscreens do not have the same estrogenic activity as estrogen unit for unit, however since the dose is so much higher it has the potential to cause similar effects. A reasonable example is as follows: if sunscreen agents have 0.01% (1/10,000th) the activity of estrogen, a 5 gram dose of sunscreen is the equivalent of 0.5 milligrams of estrogen, which is the same daily dose prescribed as a pill for hormonal therapy in menopausal women! If you apply a modicum of common sense it’s easy to deduce that petrochemical sunscreens are not products you should be using on your children since they are naturally developmentally sensitive to hormones. They’re not good for adults either.

The sunscreen market is a minefield for consumers concerned with petrochemical exposure, so here is a list of petro-sunscreens to avoid;

Avobenzone (also known as Parsol 1789)
Dioxybenzone
Ecamsule (also known as Mexoryl or Anthelios – owned by L’Oreal)
Homosalate
Methyl Anthranilate
Octyl methoxycinnamate (Octinoxate)
Octocylene
Octyl Salicylate
Oxybenzone (Benzophenone-3, or BP-3)
Padimate O
Para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA)
PABA-ester
Phenylbenzimidazole sulfonic acid
Sulisobenzone
Trolamine salicylate

Look for products that contain mineral sunscreen, preferably Zinc Oxide, as it offers a broader spectrum of UVA and UVB protection compared to Titanium Dioxide, and Zinc Oxide is made from the critical mineral nutrient, Zinc, instead of a toxic heavy metal, Titanium. Zinc Oxide is also the only sunscreen active that’s FDA approved for use on children and babies, despite what many other brands market.

Enjoy your healthy summer!

Live clean. Green Screen®.

Green Screen® Organic SPF 20 Original and SPF 22 Tinted Sunscreens are available worldwide online at www(dot)kabanaskincare.com, North Pacific and Rocky Mountain Whole Foods and select natural product retailers nationwide. We are actively seeking to expand distribution; please direct all inquiries, including media, to wholesale(at)kabanaskincare.com.

Love your skin.  Kabana does.™  

Green Screen is a Registered ® Trademark of Kabana Skin Care LLC; other product names are also trademarked. 

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