Is your sunscreen aging your skin?

When I first started this business almost twenty years ago, natural products were relatively niche and I would often get asked what the most important product to use a 'clean' version of is - my answer was always the same and still is to this day; hand's down and without a doubt, it's....

Natural Sunscreen

If you look at the ingredients in mainstream sunscreen and then realize that you are putting it on your skin to literally get baked into your skin ... no other product gets into your bloodstream like a sunscreen does. Using a natural sunscreen is the product I care most about getting in a 'clean' version.

How do mainstream sunscreens age your skin? 

With their 'active' spf ingredients.

• Unless the active ingredient in your sunscreen is Zinc Oxide, then it's not a natural sun blocking ingredient and it is a synthetic chemical. While not all synthetic chemicals are necessarily 'bad', there's not one in the sunscreen ingredient realm that we've seen that has anything less than stellar qualities - hormone disrupting, carcinogenic, irritating - and all are known to create free radicals which accelerate skin aging.

 With their 'inactive' spf ingredients. 

• Products using synthetic sunscreen ingredients need a lot of stabilizers, emulsifiers, preservatives, etc. Basically they need a bunch of 'extra' ingredients that help support those synthetic ingredients....none of which are helping your skin age beautifully. Natural sunscreens are typically not water-based products so they don't need all those extra ingredients - their ingredients are much cleaner and therefore better for your skin.

With overuse.

• This is tricky one of course - and no, we're not at all suggesting not to use sunscreen. There's a very important fine line between not enough sun and too much sun. Vitamin D, ironically, plays a pivotal role in bolstering the body's defence against the harmful effects of UV. Not only does Vitamin D help skin cell repair and regeneration, but it also acts as a natural shield against UV radiation. So essentially Vit D helps protect you from the sun and delays skin aging. IN MODERATION of course. Fifteen minutes of sunshine a day (in the summer) is beneficial - longer periods are harmful and sunscreen is definitely recommended.

For more information about natural sun sunscreen see our Sun Protection Guide where we answer:

• is a higher spf always better?
• what are nanoparticles and does my spf have them?
• what are our recommended natural spf brands?
• and more!

Do you have a natural sunscreen brand you love? We'd definitely like to know what it is so let us know!