Related

	United States	European Union
Status	OTC drug — sunscreen monograph, Drug Facts panel, active ingredients listed first, printed expiration date	Cosmetic under Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009
New filters	Require a drug pathway; no new filter has been added in decades	Added to the Annex VI positive list — 34 permitted filters — after SCCS assessment
Max labelled SPF	"50+"	"50+"
UVA labelling	The Broad Spectrum test must be passed to use the term	The UVA-in-circle logo, requiring UVA protection ≥ ⅓ of the SPF
Water resistance	40 or 80 minutes, tested; "waterproof" and "sweatproof" are prohibited	Similar tested claims

The practical consequence: filters that are routine in Europe, Japan and Korea — Tinosorb S and M, Uvinul A Plus, Mexoryl and others — are not available in US products, because adding them requires clearing a drug approval pathway rather than a cosmetic ingredient listing.

FDA's proposed order under the CARES Act found only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide generally recognised as safe and effective; PABA and trolamine salicylate not GRASE; and twelve others, including oxybenzone, avobenzone and octinoxate, requiring further data. That proposal is not final, and the twelve remain on the market meanwhile.

• SPF measures protection against UVB — the wavelengths that cause sunburn. SPF 30 blocks roughly 97% of UVB; SPF 50 roughly 98%. The jump from 15 to 30 matters more than the jump from 30 to 50, and no sunscreen blocks everything.
• UVA penetrates deeper, drives photoageing and contributes to skin cancer, and is not measured by SPF at all. This is why "Broad Spectrum" in the US and the UVA logo in the EU exist, and why an SPF number alone is an incomplete description.

SPF is measured at 2 mg/cm². For a whole adult body that is roughly 35 ml — about six teaspoons, or a shot glass. For a face and neck, roughly a third of a teaspoon, or the "two-finger" rule.

Almost nobody applies that much. Applied at half the tested rate, the protection achieved is far below the labelled SPF — not half, but disproportionately less. Under-application is the single biggest reason sunscreen underperforms, and it is free to fix.

Then: reapply every two hours, and after swimming, towelling or heavy sweating, whatever the water-resistance claim says.

• 15–30 minutes before going out, so the film forms.
• Every exposed area — the ears, the back of the neck, the tops of the feet, the scalp part line, the lips with a balm.
• Reapply on schedule, not when you remember.
• It is the last skincare step and the first makeup step.
• Cloud and window glass are not protection. UVA passes through glass; UVB largely does not.
• Sunscreen is one layer of protection. Shade, timing, clothing, a hat and sunglasses do more, and are free.

Carries a printed expiration date in the US, and it means what it says — filter degradation is real, and avobenzone in particular is photounstable and requires stabilising. Typically three years from manufacture.

Discard anything that has separated, changed colour or smell, or been left in a hot car for a season — heat accelerates degradation, and a car in summer is the worst storage in this catalogue.

• Sun and Tanning — the shelf this sits on, and the rest of it.
• Cosmetics — what the label is legally allowed to say, and the full catalogue.
• The rest of Sunscreen — Sunscreen Spray · Sunscreen Stick · Mineral Sunscreen · Chemical Sunscreen · Facial Sunscreen.
• Health and Wellness — where skin cancer prevention belongs.
• Regulatory statements here follow the FDA and EU sources listed on Cosmetics, read 16 August 2026.