If a sunscreen comes with a high SPF rating and performs close enough in random testing (which is hard to replicate) then I wouldn’t have any concerns in the real world.

The body of the article has some more details about how the number of majorly deficient brands was much smaller, but that makes for less clickbaity headlines:

> The measured sunscreen efficacy of 4 models were below SPF15, of which 2 were sunscreen products with very high protection i.e. labelled with SPF50+

Knowing which 2 brands were labeled SPF 50 but performed below 15 would have been helpful, but the article is not helpful.

There's just this weird statement at the bottom of the page:

> The Consumer Council reserves all its right (including copyright) in respect of CHOICE magazine and Online CHOICE

The core operating principle of sunscreens is that, the more your skin is covered in opaque inorganic metal oxides, the less it is exposed to harmful UV lights. There would be a lot of little tricks and additional paints to make it less irritating and less crazy looking to wear, but the point is, sunscreens fundamentally rely on opacity.

I think just knowing that lets one have a lot more of intuition about sunscreens than reading bunch of sales brochures on SPF or PA figures or wondering if the fancy ones are worth it.

Lots of sunscreen brands should also be avoided as they contain allergy inducing-, hormone altering- or environment damaging- ingredients.

Not easy making a good choice.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gzl41rpdqo

The original CHOICE investigation names brands & products:

https://www.choice.com.au/health-and-body/beauty-and-persona...

There are brands like Neutrogena that have passing & failing products, suggesting a process issue.

Insanely so for the relatively light dusting spray sunscreens do even in the best of circumstances https://labmuffin.com/do-sunscreen-sprays-actually-work-the-...

40 yrs old now. Gfs and strangers comment about how good my skin is. No products ever, no sun screen is all I can say.

Obviously if you're in a cave all spring and get dropped off in Cabo in July, put on some sunscreen. But if you can get constant exposure to work your skin up to it, you really don't sunburn.

Plus I'd imagine you could immediately tell if your sunblock were BS and do an even better job of holding these folks accountable. You and buddy of similar skin tone both buy SPF 50 and apply it, take pictures, and see that one of you is not as well protected.

A sunscreen scandal shocking Australia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45145624 - Sept 2025 (110 comments)

A sunscreen scandal shocking Australia

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45145624

I only use SPF 50 for my nose.

But, it seems very prone to inducing overconfidence… It has to be reapplied more than you expect. You need more of it than you expect. It is less waterproof than you expect.

I mean, to preemptively retreat to the obviously defensible position: I’m not saying it is negative, but it is better to just cover up and avoid staying in the sun for too long, right?

1. Only 12% of US adults have vitamin D levels in the recommended range [0] and while vitamin D levels are strongly associated with nearly every marker of health, supplementing vitamin D does not improve health [3]

2. Vitamin D levels are strongly correlated with overall health, quality of life, and decreased mortality (incl. cancer mortality, CVD mortality, et cetera [5.]) This association is quite robust. "Lower 25(OH)D concentrations were also associated with increased all-cause mortality among participants who reported being in good to excellent health" [5] When you adjust for age/sex/race/smoking, a lot of health indicators (such as BMI!) fall apart; this is why we now consider waist to hip ratios as better predictors [6, 7.] Vitamin D levels, however, remain a robust predictor of health, even adjusted for age/sex/race/health factors [5.]

3. Annual deaths from melanoma, 8430; median US age at death from melanoma, 72 [1] (just a few years off the median US age at death from any cause!)

4. Age-adjusted melanoma deaths by race per 100k: flat since the 80s [2.] "By race" is important here because different racial groups have wildly differing melanoma risk, and the racial makeup of the US is not constant with time.

In other words, in terms of risk-reward, there is no question: the median person should trade off even a large increase in melanoma death risk for a small increase in vitamin D levels. Can you, or is that a false argument?

Bit of background: "Terrestrial ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is the main determinant of vitamin D status. Stratospheric ozone absorbs all solar UVC (100–280 nm), attenuates UVB (280–315 nm) but not UVA (315–400 nm). The sun's height determines the UVR pathlength through the ozone layer. Thus, UVB intensity (irradiance) depends mainly on latitude, season and time of day. The ratio of UVA to UVB also varies with the sun's height because of the differential effect of the ozone layer. Thus, terrestrial UVR typically contains ≤ 5% UVB (~295–315 nm) and ≥ 95% UVA. The minor UVB component is responsible for vitamin D synthesis" [4]

The steelman case for sunscreen is: you have a ~0.2% chance of dying a few years early from melanoma. Rigid sunscreen use will reduce some, not all, of that risk. We have not yet had the time to see exactly how much that risk is reduced (people only started using sunscreen en masse in the 90s) and sunscreen is usually not applied as directed [4.] Although existing studies are poor quality and do not take into account the many factors in vitamin D production and sun exposure (type of light, body surface area exposed, life of vitamin D in the body, etc) some of them - funded by industry - claim that you can still, somehow, produce sufficient vitamin D.

The anti case: the majority of sunscreen sold has been shown to be toxic; decades of sunscreen use has not had any appreciable impact on melanoma death rates; all improvements in mortality are associated with improved treatment, not sunscreen. The establishment says the reason mortality is not down is that everyone uses sunscreen incorrectly; imagine if condoms had no effect on birth rates, or airbags didn't decrease mortality because "you're using them wrong"... it is an outrageous defense. Sunscreen is designed to block the overwhelming majority of UVB, which is responsible for vitamin D synthesis; this would _trivially_ cause less vitamin D synthesis. The contra argument, that your body can still make sufficient vitamin D despite blocking the main pathway for its synthesis, is designed and funded nearly entirely by industry.

[0] NHANES 2009-2014, adults

[1] https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/melan.html

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6421a6.htm

[3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1809944

[4] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6899926/ (financed by L'Oréal and written by L'Oréal employees; the overwhelming majority of the research is industry funded)

[5] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6388383/

[6] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3154008/

[7] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

What I find personally works is to build up a base tan. I probably did a little sunscreen application back in May but just spend a lot of time outdoors so by the time it got really sunny I had enough tan that I didn't need sunblock to not get burnt.

Even my wife who is very light and "can't tan" - I saw a picture of her when she was a lifeguard in highschool - she's bronze and probably wouldn't need sunblock either.

Obviously people make money when you buy sunscreen so the message that you don't need it doesn't get a lot of amplification.