The Worst Sunscreen Misinformation: 2026 Edition

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, most of you are sweating. It's sunscreen misinformation season. I'm Michelle, chemist and probably the leading expert on social media sunscreen misinformation at this point. This time we have some old myths, but also some brand new myths because if you don't care about truth, you can just make stuff up. Just pull it out of your energy recharging hole. Welcome to Critical Thinking Club sunscreen edition. Grab a drink, grab your sunglasses, grab your tinfoil hat. Let's get into it. And if I pull up to the function looking a little blue, how about you just go ahead and mind your business? The dermatologist said the only way I'm going to get rid of this hyperpigmentation is if I have mineral sunscreen on. And unfortunately, this is how every single one I've encountered has been formulated. Okay? So, if I pull up to the function looking like a gross sister, leave me alone. — This myth really annoys me because I mean, no one should have to suffer looking like this. Mineral sunscreens do not have some sort of special property that makes them work better for hyperpigmentation or anything else. There are a few reasons that people give for this idea. The first one is that mineral sunscreens reflect UV whereas chemical sunscreens absorb UV and then convert it to heat. And the idea is that this extra heat can make pigment worse. This simply is not true. Mineral sunscreens also mostly work by absorbing UV and converting it to heat. And the amount of heat that they produce is really, really tiny. I put a bunch of different sunscreens on my arm and went into the sun and looked at it through a thermal camera and you can't see a difference between the two different types of sunscreen or even between any of the sunscreens and my skin. There is a bigger difference in heat between my elbow and my wrist. The second myth is that mineral sunscreens protect more against blue light. They really don't do that much unless they are tinted sunscreens because it is the iron oxides giving it the tint that is absorbing the blue light. Skin is kind of in that orange range. And if you look at a color wheel, complimentary colors are opposite on the color wheel. If something looks orange, that means it is absorbing the opposite color, which is blue. But tinted chemical sunscreens protect against visible light just as well as tinted physical sunscreens. For example, there's this study from Brazil. Out of the 41 tinted sunscreens they tested, 26 of them blocked over 99. 9% of the visible light. That is almost 2/3 of them. And this included both chemical and physical tinted sunscreens. They also tested three non-tinted sunscreens and they found that they did not protect much against visible light at all. Another myth is that mineral sunscreens protect better against UVA because they block all wavelengths and this isn't true. You do want high UVA protection because this is a huge trigger for pigment. This graph shows how well different ingredients block different wavelengths of UV. The higher the line, the better it's blocking at that wavelength. On this graph, UVA goes from here up to over here. Zinc oxide is this low green line over here. And you can see it's quite wide across, but it's quite low, which means you need to put a lot of zinc oxide in to get high protection. It's sort of like a low fence. If you have a lot of zinc oxide, that's what gives that white cast. Now, chemical sunscreens tend to block less evenly across a range of wavelengths. So, they're like skinnier fences, but they are a lot higher. That's why every chemical sunscreen has a bunch of different ingredients in it. so that they can sort of cover the whole spectrum. They're putting the fences next to each other. And if you look at the highest fences here, these are all chemical sunscreens. Like Ava Benzone is this red one. It is kind of a beast. It's really big. This big one over here is the new one from L'Oreal, which is Mexoral 400 MCE. Both types of sunscreens can still be low and high protection. It really depends on what the labeled SPF is. But in terms of like absolute limits, mineral sunscreens have more limits. If you just have mineral and you want really high UVA protection, it ends up looking super white and people don't want to wear it. I published a report with Beauty Cyclone recently on a survey that we did about a year and a half ago. We found that the top reasons people don't wear sunscreens are largely aesthetic reasons. Things like they couldn't find a sunscreen with a comfortable texture. They haven't found one that looked nice. They couldn't find one without icing. Even though a lot of people know they should be wearing sunscreen, they just will not wear sunscreen until they find one that they like aesthetically. This is why I say you need to find a sunscreen that you enjoy applying a lot of regularly. Because if you don't, then you probably aren't going to wear it. For some people, they will genuinely enjoy mineral sunscreens more. But for the vast majority of people, we prefer chemical sunscreens. And this is why all these myths about the fake benefits of mineral sunscreens are so harmful. When people think they're the only option, they just end up not wearing sunscreen

at all. — If it's not even safe for a coral reef, what makes you think that it's safe for your skin? Personally, I don't understand why every summer we slather ourselves in sunscreen when it's our largest organ. If something isn't good for coral, that doesn't mean that it's also not good for humans. Like, we are different species. We react to different things. Like dogs, they do not react well to chocolate. Humans are fine with it. With cows, they eat tons of grass. And humans should not be eating grass. It's really bad for your stomach. There's also this skin being the largest organ thing. Just because it's the largest organ doesn't mean that putting things on it is somehow worse. Skin has largely evolved to be a barrier. It is mostly keeping things out. The pineal gland is probably our smallest organ. And I guarantee you that rubbing sunscreen onto that is going to be way worse. I mean, even rubbing water on it is going to be way worse because of things like bacteria. In Thailand, you can't even go in the water above your ankles because the sunscreen is bleaching and damaging the coral reefs. This is what a healthy coral reef looks like. And this is what it looks like when it's exposed to sunscreen. Sunscreens bleaching coral reefs is a massive myth that started with like one bad paper. There's actually been research on how sunscreens impact coral for a really long time before this paper that came out in October 2015. And it was always really high amounts. But this study was essentially just marketed really, really well. So this was in October 2015. This came from someone called Craig DS. And basically they measured how much oxyenzone was needed to hurt coral. And then they also measured how much was actually in the environment near reefs. Essentially according to their data, the levels that they found near the reefs were higher than the levels that they found were needed to hurt coral. Now, this kind of seems reasonable on the face of it, but once you look deeper into it, it gets kind of sus. First off, this study was all over the media right after they published it. Like, all of these headlines are from October 20th or 21st. And that's because they sent out a press release before the study was published. This is something called science by press release. Essentially, this is a really exciting topic. Reporters want to be the first to report on it and get those clickbay titles. So, these journalists didn't wait for other coral scientists to actually read the study critically and look for problems with it before they put out their stories and got this idea into everyone's heads. And it turns out there were tons of problems with this study. In 2022, the Nationalmies did a sunscreen study. They had a whole bunch of the top coral researchers go through all the data on this and work out what's going on. And it turns out both types of data from this study were massive outliers. They just did not agree with the rest of the data. First, the levels of oxyenzone in the environment. These were based on measurements that sometimes were just a single sample that was half a cup of water. Like literally this much. This study concluded that there were lots of data gaps before they could make any sort of real recommendations. But big picture, sunscreen is just really far down on the list of things that are causing coral bleaching. This is what a lot of the top coral scientists were saying when the original study came out. You can see more on that in my video on reef safe sunscreen. If you look at the Great Barrier Reef, the bit where there's the most bleaching is near the top. That is not where tourists go. Tourists are mostly in the green area, which is where there's the least bleaching. So, it doesn't make sense if sunscreen was actually causing this. The obvious answer is climate change. It's always climate change. So, why did this study cause so many changes in laws? Well, politicians aren't always making decisions based on good science. A lot of the time it is just to get votes. People really like coral and it is so much easier just to ban a couple sunscreen ingredients instead of actually taking proper action on climate change. It is like a smoke screen for in action. Now in terms of chemical versus mineral, they actually completely overlap in toxicity according to that national academy study. This diagram is from it. Each of these dots is a data point from a study and lower means more toxic. And you can see zinc oxide is actually pretty bad. If you use unrealistic amounts on coral, it can actually be more toxic than oxybenzone and octinoxate, which are the two that have been really pushed as not reef safe. Unless you are swimming right next to the coral, it is just really unlikely that your sunscreen choice is going to make much of a difference.

— Liver, goas and all of these advanced thinkers of our race not use sunscreen because they understand that sunscreen does exactly what it says that it prevents. People say, "Ah, wear sunscreen and you'll be protected. " But guess what? Is the sun literally the primary source of energy on this planet for every single ecosystem alive? The very thing that's keeping you alive. They're saying block it out. Block out the divine connection that you have with the sun. How innane and asinine of an argument is that? — I honestly can't work out if this account is a parody or not because liver king, he is this influencer who is really into eating raw organ meat, but he's never really been held up to be like one of the advanced thinkers of our race by his followers. even before all the stuff came out about how he was just on steroids the whole time allegedly. But then I scroll through this guy's profile and there's a video of him buying all this raw milk. And to me that just seems like a bit too much commitment like financially to this whole parody. But then he also posted a video about how eating with utensils causes IBS because it means you don't have that same connection with your food. And then the next day he posted himself eating ice cream with a spoon. And then there's also this video where he pronounces Sarah Ve and juxiposition correctly. — I need carave. I need SPF 50. I need SPF 30. What a huge justosition between natural and artificial. Next time you put on sunscreen cream for your face, retinol. Consider the juxiposition. — Like and subscribe to support my detective work. And he's also got an orchid in the background. That is not easy to grow in the UK. Like that requires brains and talent. I guess it's also possible that I am just unbelievably bad with plants. And also in this video, his window blind is down. It is literally blocking out the divine connection that he should have to the sun. And I thought maybe this was a really funny subtle touch, except the blind is down for nearly all of his other videos in this position. So maybe he is just new to thinking. I don't know. Maybe it's more obvious to some of you that he's serious or not. Maybe I want him to be joking because it would just be too depressing otherwise. I guess on the bright side, it is nice to have East Asian representation in this like galaxy wellness space. The whole model minority thing where Asians are meant to be really good at science and smart is a harmful stereotype. It must be really nice and spacious in his brain. Just so much room for activities.

— Why are people so scared of chemical sunscreens? Let me tell you. — This is Dr. Myro. He is an aniologist. He posts like three videos a day or something on all sorts of topics. So, unsurprisingly, his video on sunscreens has a lot of myths in it. — In 2019, they took 24 healthy volunteers and they had them apply chemical sunscreen four times per day for 4 days. They then tested their blood and they found out that these chemicals, the sunscreen chemicals actually got into their blood at the level so high the FDA said, "hm, we have to study this. " it gets worse. — So, note all this spooky music. It's really building this atmosphere. Now, the first part is correct. This study is cited by a lot of people, including a lot of medical doctors and dermatologists, as one of the reasons they're scared of chemical sunscreens. But the problem is this study is taken so out of context. It's a great example of how easy it is to misinterpret a scientific study if you don't have the right background. There is just a lot of assumed knowledge that is not included in the paper that you need to really interpret it. In my experience, one of the biggest sources of sunscreen myths is that people hear sunscreen and they immediately think the right experts have to be dermatologists. My friend Jen of the Eco World made this excellent chart on who's the right expert for different beauty topics. For this one on safety, it's not dermatologists. The right experts are actually toxicologists. Specifically, it is safety assessors like Moskin Lab, who I've had on my channel before. This was a really famous study. It was done by the FDA, and it's been 7 years since it was published. Other regulators have seen it, and all of the chemical sunscreens that are commonly used in the US have been reassessed and reallowed in Europe. Sunscreens are one of the most strictly regulated products that we put on our skin. This sort of study does not just slip under the radar. So clearly there is more to this story, but first I guess let's hear how he thinks it gets worse. — In another study, scientists found that after a single application, the chemicals in sunscreen are found in the blood of every single volunteer they tested. That's after a single application of sunscreen, it's now in your blood. And for ingredients like homosellate and oxyenzone, those were detected 21 days after the last application in half the volunteers. That's right. These chemicals are in your blood 3 weeks after the last application. So what? — Again, there's all this scary music and he keeps on going on about how it's in your blood. Every single volunteer. But the thing is, detecting something doesn't mean it's actually doing something. It has to be at a high enough level to interact with something in your body to cause a harmful effect. Like there are a lot of things that have to happen. For example, we have a whole bunch of uranium atoms in our bodies, and that is completely fine because there's really not that many of them. So, finding these things at really low levels, it's really just telling us that analytical chemists are really good at their jobs. Now, okay, let's hear his reasoning. — Well, in animal studies, they found these chemicals to disrupt your hormones like estrogen, testosterone, the thyroid. So, while the FDA is studying these effects in humans, I'm personally sticking to mineral sunscreen. It's actually been known since the '90s that sunscreens absorb into blood. It just wasn't officially recognized by the FDA until they did these recent 2019 and 2020 studies. This is because the FDA has very specific types of studies that they require to like officially evaluate sunscreens and other drugs. So, this is more about the state of the regulations rather than science. Toxicologists everywhere else have been taking blood absorption into account when they've been assessing the safety of sunscreens, working out the safety limits. Plus, they also look at a lot more studies, too. The EU has reassessed the safety of all the common chemical sunscreens used in the US in like the last 5 years. I've talked about their assessments in a different video. These animal studies are actually the ones that they used to set the limits for humans. And the whole purpose of these studies is to find the line where there is some sort of effect happening. So, these studies are designed to find effects that is a very normal result of the study. it doesn't mean that there is also an effect in humans at the amounts that we use. So in the safety assessment based on the animal data they work out an amount that would cause a very small not very concerning effect in humans who are using the sunscreen every day. And then the limit they set is over 100 times lower than that. There is just a massive safety buffer. For example, Oxybenzo's new EU limit is 2. 2%. That means that in the safety assessment, they worked out that even if you use sunscreen all over your body every day, it could have 220% oxyenzone and you should still not have even a very small, not very concerning change in your body. Again, these safety buffers are massive. I have another video where I go through the EU safety assessments in more detail. — Sure, maybe you get a bit of the white glow, but there is no meaningful absorption in your body. There's no concerns about hormone disruption. they are for sure safe for you and the coral reef. — I don't think he'd be dismissing this like bit of white glow if he wasn't very light-skinned himself. The statement for sure safe for you, that just isn't true for anything. Everything has a toxic dose, including like water and oxygen. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide go through the same safety assessments as chemical sunscreens do. And there are tons of downsides of mineral sunscreens, and these can lead to health risk because they aren't protecting as well. First off, they have a lot of stability problems because minerals are dense. We also saw the white cast and the heaviness. That means that people tend to apply less than they should to get good protection. This is why a lot of mineral sunscreens contain SPF boosters. These are basically like chemical sunscreens with very small modifications. So, they don't need to be listed as chemical sunscreens, and a lot of people don't know they exist. But, they pretty much work the same as chemical sunscreens, and they have similar properties, including in terms of safety. So, if mineral sunscreens were so great and didn't need chemical sunscreens to help them out, they wouldn't be hiding them. Again, this is the sort of video that makes people think they have to use mineral sunscreens and then they end up not using any sunscreen at all, even though

they really should be. I wanted to talk a bit about my approach to dealing with videos like this where it is really harmful misinformation coming from someone like a medical doctor, someone that people who trust science will listen to. They have authority bias. Because sometimes I get criticisms about how I'm really harsh to people who just made one little mistake. And I think it's because people don't see all the stuff that happens before I film a debunk of someone's video. First, I consider how the creator is probably going to respond and how far the video has already spread. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt if they seem like they are open to correction. My professional background is in education. I'm kind of like obsessed with teaching and explaining science. I used to be head of chemistry at a big tutoring college. I was writing the textbooks for all the teachers and tutors to teach from. And a lot of that job involved really trying to untangle students got the science wrong and how best to help them stop being wrong. And a lot of this is about like reading where they're coming from, whether they're coming in good faith or bad faith. So, if I come across a post and it's someone who seems to have put in effort, but they made an honest mistake because everyone is human and does that from time to time and I think they might actually do the right thing and correct themselves. Usually, I will just leave a polite comment correcting them. Other people coming across the video before it's corrected or taken down will also see it. So, here are a couple I've left recently. Sometimes, I'll stitch it if I think it's a common misconception or there's some interesting signs to talk about, and I will be really nice and polite to that person. If they seem resistant to correction, they're doubling down, like if people have already tried correcting them and they are just ignoring it or being really rude in response, or if they have a massive platform and they really should have better processes in place to reduce spreading misinformation, I will be a bit meaner. Now, Dr. Myro, he has 6 million followers. He's posting three videos a day on a broad range of topics. That requires a lot of effort to keep that accurate. He doesn't seem to practice medicine anymore, so maybe he has more time. I don't know how much time his supplement company takes. When I saw it, this video was already going viral on Instagram. I think it had close to or over a million views. He also posted it to Tik Tok and YouTube shorts. And the comments were full of people who believed this. So, I started having a conversation with him about it. I summed up all my arguments there. And his response was, "He loved my content, which I doubt he's ever seen. He didn't want questionable things on and floating in my body for weeks. and also better alternatives are widely available. So, we had a bit of a conversation and he just wasn't understanding half of what I said. I also mentioned that this sort of clean beauty argument was the same as the argument from old school antivaxes on the MMR vaccine about how it contained all these questionable ingredients. This was actually like my superhero/ supervillain origin story. Way back around 2010, I was following blogs like science-based medicine. I realized a lot of the clean beauty arguments and the antivax arguments actually over overlapped and no one was debunking the clean beauty stuff. And I felt like this was a massive problem because people usually come across clean beauty maybe a decade before they have kids. So if they're too scared to put aluminium on their armpits like a really small amount. They're also going to be scared of injecting their tiny baby with a really minuscule amount because they don't understand dose. That is the lab muffin origin story. I was trying to pre-bunk this stuff before pre-bunking was a thing. Anyway, you can see some of the downsides to this sort of approach here. It is really hard to explain topics through text like this and it takes a lot of time with not very much impact. A lot of people will watch the video without even looking at the comments. Over the two days, my comment got 220 likes. His video just on Instagram had gotten maybe half a million views over the same time. Also, the number of times I've typed out a really long comment and then I'm looking something up and then I come back and Instagram has refreshed and I've lost my comment. Basically, if a person isn't getting it after a couple comments, I usually film a proper debunk or just, you know, walk away. I posted my video, he followed me for whatever reason, and then he commented and his comment is just repeating the same points again. Even though it is a safe dose, I feel like I don't want it in my body, which is fine. We are all allowed to make choices that are based on feelings and not science. But he says it's also his professional recommendation. He is putting the weight of his medical expertise behind it. I responded to him addressing his points. We don't just have a different opinion on the interpretation of the studies. This is not something where we can agree to disagree. He is not a toxicologist. He is disagreeing with people who are infinitely more qualified than him on this topic. It's like if I had a really weird take on intubation and I was agreeing to disagree with him and all the other niologists while also saying a whole bunch of stuff that was really basic and wrong about incubation. He also kept going on about like industry science like a big farmer sort of conspiracy theory which is just so silly for this. The EU safety assessments are super transparent. You can follow through all of their working. He also talked about aspartame being bad for you, which all of the food signs people have debunked. And it's another example where switching to the alternative can actually be harmful. And I feel very strongly about this last bit. As a medical doctor, you shouldn't be guided by feelings over evidence, especially when you're posting on a public platform and superpowering any of your non-evidence-based device with authority bias. I feel like this applies to any scientific expert creator. It is irresponsible to not check what the most relevant experts think about a topic before you post. People trust experts. My reply was so long I had to break it up into two comments, but I was smart enough to draft it in a different app so I didn't like lose everything. And so we get line breaks this time. And his response, it has become apparent that this is just disintegrating into emotional arguing and bringing people down. I see you do a fair amount of it on this channel, especially other doctors. It has become fashionable these days to attack health care professionals. Anyway, I don't really participate in personal attacks. It's just not how I like to treat people and this is not why I am here. I wish you well and I hope you can find it within yourself to see that there is more than one opinion that's valid here. But if not, it is what it is. Take care. It's just so ridiculous to be calling someone emotional when you're bringing like no good arguments. I think some people who saw this ended up commenting angrily on his video because he did delete it off Instagram and he unfollowed me. Oh no. But then he didn't delete it off Tik Tok or YouTube shorts. So again, I do not think he did this in good faith. As of now on YouTube, his video has 2. 6 million views. Mine has 57. 5. On Tik Tok, his one has 1. 9 million views. Mine has 37,000. If we combine that, his video has had 45 times more views than mine. and he posts seven times more videos than I do. And it's not like I successfully refuted it either. So, I think Brandolini's law is actually a massive underestimate. It is

just so much easier and faster to grow a platform if you don't care about accuracy, if you post anything that's exciting, that's sensational, that will get views. And it is honestly just really depressing to think about. I just need to not think about the numbers. Maybe to cheer ourselves up, we should watch that primal Asian dude's two brain cells struggling. Utensils are among the worst inventions in human history. When you eat with your hands, your hands have nerve endings that connect to your brain. When you switch to using a fork, a third party, which is completely redundant, you no longer have that process. Ice cream is healthier than salad. Substantially so. It's not even close. Do you understand?

— Sunscreen does not prevent skin cancer in black people because sun exposure is not associated with skin cancer in black people. It's that simple. — This is Dr. a day Adamson and I got tagged in by so many people to fact check this which was pretty funny to me because for this topic he is one of the top experts who was one of the speakers at my sunscreen e- summit that I held with Jen of the Eco World back in 2022. So this video is actually debunking a common misconception. — There have been numerous studies looking at the relationship between sun exposure and skin cancers across various races, ethnicities. None of them have reliably shown an association between sun and skin cancer in black people. So any dermatologist, aesthetician or skin influencer saying that black people need sunscreen for cancer prevention is not telling you the truth. — He is obviously based in the US and I am in Australia and it's just so interesting to me the contrast between our official sun protection recommendations from US people. I almost always hear that you need to wear sunscreen everyday. Everyone needs to do this, even black people. I've even seen some Australians who have started saying this because there are just so many more US people online. — I'm a skin cancer researcher and dermatologists in the United States and I've written extensively about this. I've published a seinal article summarizing the data in this space and quite frankly I'm probably among the most knowledgeable on the planet about this very narrow area of science. Even if you step back and use common sense, if the sun was such a powerful risk factor causing skin cancer in black people, wouldn't there be epidemics of skin cancer in areas of high sun in a lot of black people such as the Caribbean or subsaharan Africa? — There is a caveat here that the data isn't that extensive. Now, there are still good reasons for black people to wear sunscreen. to prevent sunburn, to prevent premature aging caused by UV, and especially to prevent uneven pigment. Uneven pigment is a massive issue if your skin loves pumping out pigment. The smallest thing can trigger it, and sun is not a small thing. It is a massive thing. Uneven pigment is the main way that pigment competent skin types age. It is the equivalent of wrinkles for white skin. But for skin cancer, the main risk factor is if you are getting more UV than your skin evolved for. This is why Australia is the skin cancer capital of the world. It isn't actually because of the ozone layer that has mostly recovered now and the whole doesn't actually reach Australia. It is just white people living where white people did not evolve. And when I'm talking about evolution, I'm talking about both melanin, how much melanin your skin naturally has, like tans, they don't block out much UV at all, so they don't really help. Also, mechanisms for limiting any UV damage once that UV gets in and stopping that from turning into cancer. Again, I am in Australia and our sun protection/exposure guidelines are very evidence-based. They were last updated in 2023 and they released a 44-page document which lays out all their reasoning. It is a collaboration between a bunch of experts from different perspectives. We have dermatologists and skin cancer of course, but we also have our main um general cancer charity. We also have bone health groups and multiple sclerosis. And their latest recommendation is based on skin tone. I have summarized it in this diagram from my book, this pretty hardcover book, The Science of Beauty. Important note here, this recommendation doesn't take into account if you care about how your skin looks. This is all just about straight up health. So, if you want to prevent uneven pigment, white skin actually has a lower risk for that. So, this is like for the parts of your body where you don't really care as much about the look of, at least for darker skin tones. This is the less pretty version from the guidelines. It says routine sunscreen application is not needed because of the low risk of harm from sun exposure. Here is their reasoning. They refer to the evidence on darker skin tones and risk of skin cancer. — And before somebody brings up Bob Marley who did die from melanoma was on his toe. And when was the last time you got sunburn down there? So just stop it. — Bob Marley is one of the points that people bring up a lot when they're saying black people need to wear sunscreen to prevent skin cancer. But the type of melanoma that he had was acral melanoma. This is a specific subtype of melanoma that isn't linked to sun exposure even in white people. So sunscreen just wouldn't have helped here. I've seen people make the argument that black people should still wear sunscreen just in case for that teeny tiny potential decrease in skin cancer risk because skin cancer in black people does tend to be caught later and it has worse outcomes. But I don't think this is a great argument. The costbenefit ratio is just really bad here. like black people would have to pay a lot more in time and money for a much lower benefit than white people. And the reasons for this later detection and worse outcomes, these are systemic social issues, socioeconomic inequalities, lower healthcare access, that kind of thing. So this extra like sunscreen cost, it just makes it worse. And if I was super cynical, which I am, I would say this is a very US cultural thing where they like to pretend that individual choices are going to be the solution for systemic problems. I talked about this in my Avon Burkart video, which was also on sunscreen misinformation. You can't personal responsibility your way out of systemic problems. It is essentially the same fundamental issue as for reef safe sunscreen. this whole idea that all you have to do to solve climate change is to choose a different sunscreen. You don't need like the government to do things. If there was an individual action type thing that would help with this, I would say it is to educate people on what skin cancer in black skin looks like so they know what to look for and to go see a doctor if they see like a big red honking flag. saying just wear more sunscreen. Arguably, I would say this could make the problem a lot worse because it would make people think you only need to check places that get sun exposure. But a huge portion of skin cancers in black skin are in places that don't get sun exposure, unlike in white skin. Here's why most sunscreens will

age you more quickly. And that's because most of them are chemically based. So some of the chemicals to look out for octinoxate, avoenzone, oxyenzone. These chemicals will react with that UV light coming in and now that's going to form reactive oxygen species, ROS's. These are free radicals. We know that free radicals of course are going to age our skin with photoagging much more quickly. First of all, the NAM trial, which is one of the big studies that found that using sunscreen does prevent photoagging, it actually used these two specific ingredients that I hear on screen. The other really ridiculous thing about this is that mineral sunscreens are actually way more notorious for producing free radicals when they're under UV. This is something called photocatalysis. Titanium dioxide, in particular, is really famous for doing this. For all sunscreens, it doesn't really matter because this free radical thing is happening in the top dead layers. The sunscreens don't go very far down. They don't have a high enough concentration in the living layers for this to have a big effect. But on the other hand, what does get lower down and cause free radicals is UV itself. It can penetrate far deeper and that is how we get photoaging. So my tip here is to get some natural sunlight exposure. That's actually going to help to build your collagen. There's a right way to do it and I have the tips in my new book, The Lost Medicine. So, check it out. So, that's really important that we're actually building a little bit of a suntan, helping to get more melanin, which of course is a very powerful antioxidant. Great for anti-aging. Follow for more natural health tips. What even is this? Like, she said photoagging before. Literally, that just means light causing aging. It is the sun itself, and then she's telling you to get more sun. Has she not seen a lot of like old tan people before? Melanin is a great natural sunscreen, but the amount you need is a lot more than what lighter skin people get after they tan. If your skin is naturally darker, then it does help. That is the main reason why there's this whole thing where black people, they tend to age with pigment rather than with wrinkles. The average age where black people get wrinkles is like 10 plus years after white people do. But like none of this means that going into the sun is actually anti-aging. UV damages collagen. It increases enzymes in your skin that specifically break collagen down. Like, where is she getting this from? If she thinks the UV is coming in and reacting with the chemical sunscreens to cause free radicals, why does she not think this also happens to other substances in your skin and much deeper in your skin? Here is a video from Dr. Sarah G. She is a dermatologist in Texas. And you can see the big difference between the sun exposed arms and the protected legs. Like all those wrinkles there are from collagen loss and also elastin increase. Like that is aging. The melanin is not helping. Here is a photo from a paper where a woman use sunscreen on her face but not her neck. She is 92 years old and yeah wrinkles and melanin they actually go hand in hand. There are also a bunch of studies showing sunscreen reduces aging as well. But you don't even need science for this. There are just so many clear real life examples. I should also say this person, she is Dr. Janine Bing, she is a naturopathic doctor and the training they get is not really based on rigorous science. And this is a good example of this. People got really mad when I said this last time, but unfortunately maybe some naturopaths are science-based, but their

training really is not. — A few dermatologists are re-evaluating the issue of sunlight on the human body. And the leader of that is um is a character called Richard Weller um from Edinburgh. and he's going back over all the data and Richard's coming out and saying, you know, um all cause mortality is lower in people that get a lot of sunlight. And his argument is that the only thing you got to avoid is sunburn. — This is a clip from the human podcast that he then posted on Instagram. The guest he has is Dr. to Glenn Jeffrey and what he says is technically true, but there are a ton of caveats and what is in his caption needs even more caveats. First off, I think it's kind of funny that this is being framed as like only a few dermatologists who are just starting to do this. Again, the Australian guidelines, the official ones, they are very evidence-based and they've talked about balancing the benefits and risks of sun exposure for over a decade. Like these guidelines, they talk about the benefits. That is why they recommend not just completely blocking off the sun. And the Australian College of Dermatologists, their logo is right here. They officially endorse these. I wrote a blog post about the old guidelines back in 2016. I also did a video on this back in 2018. And it's not just about vitamin D. There's more evidence now, but there was enough evidence more than 10 years ago for the skin cancer capital of the world, Australia, to have guidelines that encourage some sun exposure. But the problem is where the balance is. Most people watching Hooperman are probably in the US. They're probably seeing get a lot of sunlight. That means I need a lot more sun exposure. But most people in the US are probably getting way more sun exposure than they should for most of the year and then maybe less than they should in the middle of winter. And I think this also applies to hubin. The best way to work this out is UV index. This tells you how strong the UV is. 1 minute in summer can be more UV than 30 minutes in winter. That is why the Australian guidelines are based on UV index. Basically, it is the same the dose makes the poison thing. The more UV you have, the more chance you have of that UV coming in and ming some DNA and that eventually turning into cancer. This is the next part of the podcast. — High levels of skin cancer in Australia — in the Caucasian population. — But maybe they're getting too much sun exposure too fast. The UV index is very high down there. I will say you can I mean you quote you feel it quote unquote. Okay, — this is the same thing that he did in his skin health episode last time. He mentioned UV index, but then he didn't really link it to looking it up for his location and seeing how it compares to Australia. I think he also maybe doesn't know the recommendation is at UV index 3. Like that is where the line is. It is not very high where you need to protect your skin. Glenn Jeffrey and Richard Weller are in the UK. That is the two green lines. Not sure if Huberman has moved to LA now, but the two blue lines are California, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. And then for Australia, that is the red and orange lines. His situation is so much more like the Australian situation. With the UK, white skin evolved there. People aren't getting large amounts of UV just going to and from work. For most people, their main exposure to cancer-causing amounts of sunlight is when they are roasting on a beach for a couple of weeks in the middle of summer. So the advice to just avoid sunburn that makes a lot more sense in that context. Although again let us look at my favorite report. This report is just really underrated. Subariththemal exposures to UV radiation are associated with increased risk of skin cancer. Subariththemal means it isn't causing your skin to turn pink. That is like the first step towards sunburn. Yes, the evidence is stronger for sunburn causing increased skin cancer. But there is evidence from laboratory studies that subarthemal exposures can lead to typical UV induced DNA mutations. And while the skin has effective DNA repair mechanisms, some mutations can persist ultimately leading to skin cancer. The laboratory studies are where they shone UV onto skin and then they looked at the DNA. This is what the Nambble trial showed that was in Brisbane where wearing sunscreen daily instead of just when people felt like they needed it, just to the beach, for example, that reduced skin cancers. And there's also a newer Australia study that found that moles have decreased and this is likely because of better sun protection. Moles are linked to melanoma. And for this molec count drop, they only needed an 11% decrease in UV exposure. The UV index guideline just makes so much sense. There's none of this like handwavy low and high stuff because when you need to start protecting your skin is actually much lower than people expect. And the UV in winter is also much lower than people expect as well. Like it doesn't correlate with how bright it is. And these guidelines aren't just in Australia. This is on the EPA website from the US. You only not need protection at two or below. Like the general recommendation is that you do need protection before you get to very high UV index. He also says this bit. — I think we've been fed um a story that you know excessive sunlight leads to skin cancer. And the data on all reduced all-c cause mortality um in people that get a lot of sunlight. I saw a study out of Sweden looks very solid. It's kind of both. Like these things do not contradict each other. Again, the UV index based guidelines, they balance both the benefits and the risks. I also think it's kind of funny how this guest, Dr. Glen Jeffrey, his research is mostly on eyesight and mitochondria and red light. But then Huberman takes this clip where he's talking about a pretty tangential topic and decides it's like a highlight, like he's only posted two clips from this interview. And then his caption for this post is not actually mentioned in the podcast at all. It is mostly stuff from his skin health episodes that I already debunked in my 2-hour video, like all this physical barrier stuff. This was not mentioned at all in his interview with Glen Jeffrey. Also, this bit, people will argue that chemicalbased sunscreens can be okay, but after having spoken to many dermatologists, including derm oncologists, all caps, and endocrinologists, it's clear that it's best to avoid the chemicalbased sunscreens. The mineral-based ones are not inferior in any way. I did have a back and forth with him when he posted his Dr. Teao Solommani thing. He is the derm oncologist all caps. So maybe I am people the proper experts for sunscreen safety. The ones who actually assess this kind of thing every day. These are toxicologists and safety assessors like most skin lab who is in my hubin debunk. Like when was the last time a medical doctor had to treat someone for a problem that was definitely caused by chemical sunscreen? It's just not relevant to their jobs. The derm oncologist Dr. to Salmani. He also

recently had a viral 2. 2 million view Tik Tok. On the Huberman episode, he said a lot of really bizarre stuff about sunscreen and skincare products, which I went through in that debunk. He also sells a supplement called sun powder that's meant to reduce sun damage. This video was actually posted on the supplement account. Let's have a look. — Skin cancer surgeon rings popular sunscreens. Banana boat sports spray. — 2. 7 out of 10. If you have nothing at all and you have to use it, definitely some protection is better than not. But longterm, I don't like this product. — I agree with him on sprays. They are kind of garbage. The problem is that they come out in tiny droplets and most of those do not land on your skin, especially if you're spraying from far away. This is definitely the case with face sunscreens because you are spraying it from far away like that. I did a bunch of tests and with how the average person is applying them, maybe 17th of the stuff that is coming out of the bottle is landing on your face. With body sunscreen, you can spray them a bit closer. There were a couple of Australian studies that found that even tiny wind speeds will blow away almost all of it if you are at any sort of distance. So, it is much better to spray into your hand and then apply it or spray it right next to your skin. But I don't think this is what he's talking about because he says long-term this whole spray sunscreen isn't working problem is also a short-term problem because you are going to get burnt. I think what he's talking about is the whole chemical sunscreens are toxic stuff that he talked about in his hubman episode which I debunked in that two-hour video. It is essentially the same FDA misunderstanding of how animal and in vitro studies factor into safety assessments that I went over earlier. He's ignoring the concept of dose and the fact that much more qualified people have done the calculations to translate it to human use. When I talked to him about this, he didn't seem to realize safety assessments even existed. Sunbomb premium moisturizing — 3. 9. It's a chemical sunscreen. It is a little bit higher of an SPF, but again, octacryline. — How is he coming up with these numbers? He hasn't actually mentioned octacryline yet, but yeah, it is the same arguments. It's one of the ones that he went on about being like potentially scary in his Huberman episode. It seems like he just hasn't looked deeper into how sunscreens are regulated since he recorded that. — I do like that it's in a topical format as opposed to a spray. — Sprays are also topical. topical just means on skin. I think maybe he means cream or lotion. He did say a lot of really bizarre stuff about skin care and hair care in his human episode, like the idea that lotions contain alcohol to help them come out of pumps. There are lots of lotions that do not have pumps and do not have alcohol. That whole episode is just super weird. — Neutrogena Ultra Share Dry Touch Sunscreen. — I'd probably say 5. 25. — Okay, so we are at three significant figures now. has high SPF, which is great, but I do like shifting over to mineral predominant sunscreens for a variety of reasons. — Super. — I don't know. It just seems really weird how he's avoiding saying what these reasons are in this clip. Like, he just jumps straight to the next product. — Goop Glow Screen SPF 40. — So, I'd probably put this at a 6. 5. This is a hybrid sunscreen and kind of makeup primer. It can worsen uh acne breakouts in oily or acne prone skin, so be careful. I think this confirms my theory that he doesn't actually wear sunscreen. Glowcreen is really more of a primer than a sunscreen because if you apply the right amount, you look like Tin Man. This is what I look like with the proper amount on. It's like not good. Also, it is not a hybrid sunscreen. The active ingredients are all chemical sunscreens. Titanium dioxide is an ingredient in this, but it's there as a pigment. It is a larger size. It doesn't really absorb UV. It is the shimmer in the product. Copperton tone sport sunscreen spray 1. 9. I've never been a fan of spray chemical sunscreens for a variety of reasons. I don't like the propellant and fact that sprays often don't provide adequate coverage at all. I'm glad he's talking about the coverage, but this whole propellant thing and his whole variety of reasons, it just sounds like again it is clean beauty pseudocience. Just not understanding that dose is important because if you have too much of literally anything, it will be bad for you. The propellant is probably hydrocarbon. It is a gas. Is pretty similar to natural gas that you have in stoves. And with this stuff, you have to really try before you can inhale enough for it to actually be a health problem. — Ela MD UV daily face sunscreen. — I'd probably put this at an 8. 5. I like that it's a mineral-based sunscreen. This has been dermatologist tested not to clog your pores for oily or acne prone skin. I think it's an excellent sunscreen and we carry it in my practice. I mean, I agree this is a nice sunscreen, but it is actually a hybrid sunscreen. It contains octinoxate and zinc oxide. And this is good because it means the sunscreen overall it ends up being lighter and it has less white cast because it relies less on having lots of zinc oxide. It gives like the properties in between a chemical and a physical sunscreen aesthetically. But in his hubman episode, he says he doesn't like octonox. Some of these chemical compounds, particularly oxyenzone, particularly octacryline, particularly um octinoxinate, um that can have endocrine disruption or affect the nervous system. — Has he changed his mind or is he okay with it when he's selling it? Or has he just not looked at the products that he's selling properly or the products he talks about in a Tik Tok video that's marketing his sunpowder? or does he think octinoxate is different from octinoxinate? — Neutrogena Beach Defense SPF 70. — I'd probably put this at a mid-range 6 to 6 and a half. I don't think you need the SPF 70. There are better options. — Again, this just really feels like he's avoiding talking about what his reasoning is for avoiding chemical sunscreens. I do agree that SPF 70 is a bit excessive, but for me, it's because SPF measurements aren't that precise, especially when you go above SPF 50. like the acceptable range is a lot bigger than you'd expect. I'll talk much more about this when we do my eventual sunscreen gate/ ultraviolet/choice proper breakdown video. That is coming, I swear. — Sarah Vee hydrating mineral sunscreen. — I actually love this. I'd probably put this at a 9 and 1/2. It has a little bit of tint so people can use it as a replacement for a foundation or primer. I like that it doesn't have chemical boosters. I like this sunscreen. — Okay, I am glad he's now found out about boosters since his hubman episode. SPF boosters are ingredients that increase the SPF of a sunscreen, but they aren't active sunscreen ingredients. And a lot of these are actually very similar to chemical sunscreens. They are essentially chemical sunscreens with a couple of extra atoms. But the bits that absorb the UV, the bits that are acting as a sunscreen filter, they are the same. The problem here though is that this does contain an SPF booster. It is dethylexiladine malanate. It has a similar structure to octinoxate, which is a chemical sunscreen. I think if he was a bit more knowledgeable, I would have a whole conspiracy theory going about how he's trying to make people feel like chemical sunscreens aren't an option because people are more likely to hate mineral sunscreens and then if they don't like sunscreens, then they'll have more of a market, more of a need for his powder. But I think he just doesn't really know what he's talking about still. Like I think a skincare influencer who's just tried some of these products on their own skin would be a much more relevant expert for ranking products like this. I think this also highlights how people who keep going on about how mineral sunscreens are a great option, they probably don't wear it that much. And if they do, I don't think they are applying the recommended amount. Like Huberman saying the mineral-based ones are not inferior in any way. — Okay, so I'm here in Malibu on Mother's Day with my family spending some time at the beach and it's a beautiful 85° sunny day. Lots of people outside and my family and I love to be in the water. love to spend time in the sun and obviously we've taken our sun protective measures. We put on our sunscreen. — Have you actually put on a mineral sunscreen here? This is what I look like with the right amount of mineral sunscreen on. Can you post a video of yourself applying this amazing no white cast mineral sunscreen with no

boosters, please? Like I think we all want this recommendation if you actually have one. Stop using Korean sunscreens. If you live in Australia, you should be using Australian sunscreens. I feel like no one's actually given the proper explanation as to why, so let me explain it to you. — I agree this is best, especially if you're getting a lot of sun, but a lot of the reasons that she gives in this video are pretty common myths. So, I thought this would be a nice time to try to debunk them. Korean sunscreens are Korean sunscreens designed for the Korean sun. The ozone layer in Australia is extremely thin. Korean sunscreens are designed to be more skin care, which is not thick enough for an Australian sun. Kind of. First off, the reason Australia has stronger sun isn't because of the ozone layer. The thin part doesn't actually reach Australia. It's actually because of the lack of pollution and the fact that the Earth is physically closer to the sun during our summertime. But also, we just have a lot of white people living in a place where white skin did not evolve. Now, Australian sunscreens are usually thicker than the Korean sunscreens that are popular outside of Korea. And this usually means that they will stay on skin better, but this isn't actually about Korean versus Australian sun. It is Korean versus Australian lifestyle. We have a more active lifestyle. It is hotter. We get sweatier. That means that we are much, much more likely to sweat off the sunscreen. People in Korea are much more likely to wear sunscreen on a daily basis to and from the office. I've talked to Australian brands who said they're not going to make lightweight sunscreens because they do not want people getting burnt. Australians just don't understand that a lightweight sunscreen that they're grabbing from the shop next to all the other sunscreens, this is not one for hiking or gardening or going to the beach. Whereas the average Korean person, they know that wearing daily sunscreen to the office is a thing. They know that if they want something for more sweaty activities, they need to find a water resistant sunscreen that is for sports. And these do exist. They just aren't anywhere near as popular outside of Korea. The amount of clients I have done skin consults on and we use an observe machine and you can see the sun damage on their skin. I ask them first thing, "What sunscreen do you use? " Nine times out of 10 they've been using Korean sunscreens. This is obviously anecdotal evidence, so it isn't reliable, but there are a bunch of issues with using Korean sunscreens in Australia. I already mentioned people sweating them off, but another issue, so many people are buying fakes off websites like Amazon. This is happening a lot with popular Korean and Japanese sunscreens. There are all these counterfeit products online. My sister bought a Bori one that had the wrong smell, a different texture. It didn't show up under UV. I've also seen people buying Beauty of Josson, that like sun rice probiotics sunscreen. Beautiful sunscreen, but the stuff on Amazon was just not right. There are also temperature excursions. It's like your package went on a cruise ship through fire and ice. There's usually no temperature control when you're shipping things between different countries. And so the sunscreen can be exposed to temperatures that will make them break down or separate. I don't think this happens all that often, but at the same time, it is hard to tell if your product has gone through this unless it has obviously separated. So, if you're getting a lot of sun, like you're going to the beach, you're going on a hike, then it is just a lot safer to use a sunscreen that you buy from a physical store, they have temperature control until they hit the shelf. And then you also want to make sure you don't leave it in the car or put it in the sun. For a lower risk situation where you're getting a lot less UV, like autumn or winter, you're just going to and from the office, you're just getting a tiny bit of UV exposure, then sunscreens that you import from overseas are probably a lot more fine. It is just like weighing up the risks. — Another thing is water resistance. Australian sunscreens are designed to be water resistance, meaning they are thicker. — This isn't always the case either. There are water-resistant Korean sunscreens and I'm sure they are more water resistant than a lot of nonwater resistant Australian sunscreens. And again, the main issue here is just picking a product that stays on your skin for whatever activity you're about to do. And the UV filters in Korean sunscreens have not been tested in Australia. — This isn't true. The sunscreen ingredients in Korea are pretty much the same as the sunscreen ingredients in Australia. There's like maybe three that aren't the same. An SPF 50 in Korea is designed to be because their ozone layer is a lot stronger. In Australia, an SPF 50 from Korea is an SPF 15. This isn't true. SPF is tested pretty much the same way all around the world. The main method used is the ISO2444 method. There are two new methods coming in as well, but all of these use a standardized UV light, not the actual sun. It's a machine that's been calibrated that should be the same all around the world. That is the whole point of this test, like this standardization. There are a whole bunch of labs that do this test. And Australian sunscreens don't have to be tested in Australia. Korean Korea. They can send their sunscreens to any lab they want. They can send them to Korea and Australia. Like you can even swap. So SPF 50 in theory should be the same around the world. In reality, it isn't because of reasons we will get to in that choice. Sunscreen gate ultraviolet episode. I don't know how long this video has been running for. I filmed this over 2 days and it is now a4 to 1 in the morning. I should probably stop. Sorry, Omar. I might do a part two later in sunscreen misinformation season because I've been sent so many videos. I have like a folder of maybe 50 that I could just keep going through. I hope you enjoyed this and learned something new. Like and subscribe if you want to see more. Also, send me more videos to react to. Until next time, keep your critical thinking caps on.