Until last week, I was sleeping on the fact that sunscreens in the U.S. don’t provide full protection.
PSA: Why I’m Wearing European Sunscreens This Summer. Every summer the same thing happens with my tanning situation. I apply and re-apply a “dermatologist recommended” sunscreen and still end up deeply tan by mid-July.
Last year I used the popular SuperGoop Play, which was and is on Wirecutter’s list of the highest recommended sunscreens for the face. My dermatologist likes EltaMD UV Clear, which I also used (and use).
But an increasing number of friends have mentioned that they follow the no-nonsense advice of NYC-based Dr. Ellen Gendler. Dr. Gendler says she sees the same thing that happens to me with her patients all the time—using sunscreen religiously, but ending up deeply tanned nonetheless. She says it’s because American sunscreens don’t include chemicals that effectively protect against UVA Rays. The reason is that the FDA hasn’t yet cleared the chemicals that European manufacturers use, though they are expected to. (Sunscreen isn’t a regulated “over the counter” substance in Europe and Asia and not subject to FDA-equivalent review.) She advocates buying sunscreen from European and Asian manufacturers instead, whose products include effective UVA protection.
UVA “causes skin cancer,” according to this article by the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. And UVA rays “damage your skin, resulting in a tan … It causes almost all forms of skin aging, including wrinkles,” the article goes on to say.
After Dr. Gendler’s admonitions to go outside the US for sunscreen, I came across this piece published in Axios last month titled “Why Americans are buying European sunscreens,“ and the difference between US and European versions.
What are the sunscreens Dr. Gendler uses herself, and recommends to her clients? And how do we get them? She provides quite a few in this reel, but the GOAT, she says, is Anthelios UVMune 400 SPF50+. It’s made by LaRoche-Posay, a French company, but the versions distributed in America don’t include the UVA-protective European formulas. If you’re looking for the European versions, be careful where you get them. I found them online at The French Pharmacy and CaretoBeauty.
Here’s Dr. Gendler’s list of ingredients in Anthelios that make it so good, and here are the sunscreens she does not recommend to her clients (the highly popular SuperGoop Unseen in among them).
Healthy sunny frolicking, CRUSHes.
The Crush Letter
The Crush Letter is a weekly newsletter from Dish Stanley curating articles & intelligence on everything love & connection - friendship, romance, self-love, sex. If you’d like to take a look at some of our best stories go to Read Us. Want the Dish?
