Purposely Misleading Marketing Lingo: Sunscreen Edition
As you may know, I’m not a huge fan of sunscreen lotion. I just don’t think it’s all that necessary. If you’ve had enough Vitamin D skin production for one day, and you’re worried about burning up, using physical barriers – like shirts, hats, umbrellas – to impede the sunlight is better than slathering your skin with powerful chemicals. Still, in the event that the only thing standing between you and a second-degree sunburn is the application of some lotion, have at it. Just be aware that, according to a recent NY Times piece, there is some seriously misleading marketing lingo circulating in regards to SPF counts.
Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me sunscreen companies don’t necessarily have my best interests in mind? That Coppertone, a company whose financial success is predicated upon consumers thinking those astronomical SPF numbers actually mean something substantial, might be fudging the numbers a bit? That 90+ SPF product from Banana Boat isn’t actually more than twice as powerful as their measly 45 SPF sunscreen?
Frankly, I am shocked. Shocked and appalled. That just doesn’t sound like the Neutrogena, Coppertone, and Banana Boat, I know. These are fine, upstanding stewards of public dermatological health. Why, I’ve seen their pasty, alabaster-hued patrons buying cartons of the stuff in checkout lines, so it must be working (sure, they may have frighteningly low Vitamin D levels and brittle bones like elderly hummingbirds, but the evil sun can’t touch them!). I mean, c’mon: what could possibly compel a sunblock company to misrepresent the effectiveness of their products? It’s not like they would ever exploit our natural tendency to assume that a linear progression in SPF numbers represents a commensurately linear increase in protection from the sun. Plus, the higher SPF products tend to cost a lot more than their lowly counterparts, and we all know that the pursuit of profit never conflicts with the pursuit of all that is good and right, especially when large, multinational companies are involved – so that’s not possible. So – is it really true that the sunscreen companies are padding their stats?
Sadly, yes. 100 SPF doesn’t actually offer twice the protection of 50 SPF; the former blocks 99% of UVB rays, while the latter blocks 98%. I was no math major, and I could be mistaken, but 1% doesn’t sound like twice the protection to me. Even a sunscreen with an SPF of 30 will still “protect” you from 96.7% of UVB rays (but don’t’ expect them to put that on the package anytime soon!). At the same time as you get diminishing returns with added SPF, inadequate amounts of sunscreen result in precipitous drops in protection that fly in the face of public assumptions. Take SPF 70 lotion: if you apply half the recommended amount, the resultant protection is equivalent to SPF 8.4, not SPF 35. As you get higher in the SPF scale, the returns get smaller and smaller; as you apply less lotion, the protection sharply drops off (of course, the recommended amount often amounts to a third of the bottle!). It almost seems like the rating system, as it exists now, isn’t used to indicate protection as much as it’s intended to make consumers feel “like SPF 45 is inadequate.”
While the higher SPFs technically do offer more protection, the implied advantage is clearly overblown, and customers – their heads filled with horror stories of melanoma developing overnight after a few scant hours of unprotected sun – are generally going to go for the biggest numbers. The number 100 is twice as big as the number 50, and SPF 100 sounds twice as strong as SPF 50. Simple, basic math is anything but simple and basic when it comes to SPF.
It’s well within the sunscreen company’s purview to mislead and misdirect the hapless consumer, but hopefully those same consumers will happen across articles like this one or the NY Times’ before they get suckered in.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Mark, I think I need to make a point here. I feel that you’ve been a little laissez faire with your research here – not so much with your evidence, more the way you used it. Let me lay down a few givens so I don’t waste time.
I’ll assume that Grok was an outdoors type, for the sake of all the shade lovers out there. I’ll also assume that people who go outside do so with some common sense – ie, don’t bake in the midday heat etc.
Then I’ll add one more constant to the equation. Imagine Europeans who haven’t evolved through a period of global immigration over the last few hundred years. Result? People with very cold, celtic origins now living very close to the equator (Australia, in my case). Not just in a hot country, but one with a tiny layer of ozone in the atmosphere above it.
So, given the above – how would someone in baking heat try to interpret your article? The answer is with extreme caution.
In Oz sunscreen is not a personal choice. It is one of MANY steps necessary in order to reduce the chances of being knocked off by one of our biggest predators (for Grok’s sake that’s well ahead of sharks and crocs!).
It only takes one skin cell in trauma to lead to melanoma, and the number of people dying in Australia every year is up there with motor vehicle accidents. Yes, it’s that bad. In 2005, 1600 people died of skin cancer in Australia (melanoma and non-melanoma).
Now given that Grok is a common sense outsider, who hasn’t the advantage of thousands of years of local living the risks are far greater than any personal freedoms.
If you ask anyone in Oz about sunscreen the issues raised by your article are moot at best. For someone like me, who lives an outdoor lifestyle suncreen does what most clothing doesn’t do – provide a base UV A+B layer that is reliable. Not perfect, by any means, but reliable. This is my point – the moment we turn away from a reliable defence we are liable to send our mortality rate through the roof.
I hope you appreciate our situation in Oz, you are obviously someone who people look up to.
Thanks
PS-From a stats point of view though, it’s well understood down here (from the government spending millions educating us) that the SPF factor is only a guide and that 30+ ranges are improbable, even with titanium etc. On that part you have my agreement.
I just wanted to chime in on the “pale people who don’t readily tan like sunscreen” side. I had to laugh at the person to claimed to have “very pale” skin who took a whole hour to burn! When the sun’s high like it is now, I can’t even stand outside and talk to friends for more than a few minutes, or I start to bake and end up looking like a particularly fine cut of salmon. Going to “boiled lobster” and on to “fine blister” is not cool, so I use sunblock.
Permanent farmer’s tan (ok, maybe not a tan per se, it’s just pink and not so white that it blinds) from getting broiled at the pool one too many times as a kid is neither healthy nor attractive.
DAMN YOU SWEDES AND PASTY ENGLISH
I agree with you mark. Im happy using suncream spf50++ pa from faceshop. hee hee
Do you have recommendations on specific sunblocks to get?
I was reading this and I can’t remember where it was I heard or read it, but the numbers on sunblock, the SPF, is actually in regards to how long it can, under ideal conditions, work to block out sunlight. And I believe it’s in like, minutes, but the number listed isn’t the actual length of time it lasts, but half as long as it can last or something? I was pretty distressed to hear about that being I’m a red-head incapable of doing anything but burning.