The sunscreen ingredients people are told to avoid are six chemical UV filters: oxybenzone, octinoxate, homosalate, octisalate, octocrylene and avobenzone. In a 2020 trial run by FDA scientists, every one of the six showed up in blood above the agency's testing threshold after a single application. That's the hard number. What it means for health hasn't been decided, and the FDA still tells people to keep using sunscreen.
I don't sell sunscreen, so I've got no stake in which filter wins. Where we come in is the evening. For skin that's worn sunscreen all day, I'd reach for Bare Silk ($34, as of October 5, 2026) in the Unscented original, five ingredients with no essential oils or fragrance.
Where a number's hard, I'll print it with its source, and where a claim's soft, I'll say so and stop.
Which six filters are on the list?
All six are sunscreen active ingredients, the part of a sunscreen the FDA describes as protecting your skin from UV rays. They aren't new. Each one already sat in the FDA's 1999 sunscreen monograph, and its 2019 proposed rule gives the US ceilings in the table below. Oxybenzone has a second name, benzophenone-3, which is what the EU's cosmetics rules call it.
The 2019 rule sorted every filter by evidence. Only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide were proposed as generally recognized as safe and effective, the standard the FDA shortens to GRASE. These six landed among twelve that didn't have enough data for that call.
| Filter | What it is | The evidence, in six words | Status, October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxybenzone | US filter, up to 6% | Highest blood levels in FDA trial | US: data asked · EU: cut in body products · Hawaii: prescription only |
| Octinoxate | US filter, up to 7.5% | Above threshold after a single application | US: data asked · Hawaii: prescription only |
| Homosalate | US filter, up to 15% | Second highest blood level in trial | US: data asked |
| Octisalate | US filter, up to 5% | In blood above threshold, day one | US: data asked |
| Octocrylene | US filter, up to 10% | Breaks down into benzophenone over time | US: data asked · EU: cut in sprays |
| Avobenzone | US filter, up to 3% | Absorbed past threshold, safety data pending | US: data asked |
Seven years on, the FDA still hasn't ruled on them. Its sunscreen page, current as of September 10, 2026, lists all six as active ingredients and says the agency's asked industry for data to confirm their safety. It did act that day on two other filters. A final order removed PABA and trolamine salicylate because the FDA found their risks outweigh their benefits, and none of the six was part of it.
What did the FDA measure in blood?
Matta and colleagues at the FDA ran this trial and published it in JAMA in 2020. A 2019 pilot had already shown four filters reaching the blood. This time, 48 healthy adults used one of four sunscreens, at 2 mg per square centimeter over three quarters of the body. They put it on once on day one, then four times a day for three more days. That's a lot of sunscreen.
All six filters crossed 0.5 ng/mL on day one, after that single application. Oxybenzone ran far ahead, peaking at an average of 258.1 ng/mL from the lotion, and homosalate came second at up to 23.1 ng/mL. The other four didn't top 8 ng/mL.
The 0.5 ng/mL line is the point where the FDA asks for more testing. Below it, some extra safety studies may be waived. Above it, the agency wants them done, and crossing it isn't a finding of harm. The trial's own authors wrote that their findings don't mean anyone should stop using sunscreen, and the FDA's page says the same.
The FDA's 2019 rule singled out oxybenzone. It cited studies showing the filter gets through skin more than previously understood, plus data finding it in human breast milk and amniotic fluid, and in urine and blood plasma. The agency called that a concern, partly because of questions in the published literature about its potential for endocrine activity. So oxybenzone has been flagged for potential endocrine activity in federal health research. The rule raises the question, and it doesn't claim to answer it.
What happened with benzene in 2021?
Benzene is a separate problem from the six filters, because it's a contaminant and the 2021 findings were about specific batches. In May 2021, the testing company Valisure said it had analyzed 294 unique batches from 69 companies and found detectable benzene in 27% of its samples. Fourteen lots of sunscreen and after-sun products, from four brands, held between 2.78 and 6.26 parts per million.
Valisure's benchmark was 2 ppm. That's the level FDA guidance tolerates only when a drug offers a significant therapeutic advance and benzene can't be avoided in making it. The worst lots ran about three times that. Because the FDA regulates sunscreen as a drug, Valisure petitioned it to recall the contaminated batches and to set a benzene limit for standard drug products.
Then came a recall. Johnson and Johnson recalled all lots of five aerosol sunscreen lines in July 2021 after its own testing found low levels of benzene in some samples. The company said benzene isn't an ingredient in any of its sunscreens. It added that daily exposure at the levels it found wouldn't be expected to cause adverse health consequences. The notice classes benzene as a human carcinogen that skin can absorb.
Here's what's solid. Some sunscreen batches carried a known human carcinogen, and some were pulled. The company said its problem was limited to certain aerosols, and none of this tells you anything about the six filters themselves.
What did the EU limit, and what's the octocrylene question?
The EU moved on oxybenzone and octocrylene in a regulation dated July 7, 2022, after concerns about their potential endocrine disrupting properties set off a call for data in 2019. Its consumer safety committee, the SCCS, then reviewed both. In March 2021, it concluded oxybenzone isn't safe for consumers at its old 6% maximum in body creams and sprays.
So the limits moved. Oxybenzone can still reach 6% in a face cream, but body products and sprays now stop at 2.2%. In other cosmetics, it's capped at 0.5%. Octocrylene keeps 10% in most products and drops to 9% in propellant sprays, and the regulation calls the old levels a potential risk to human health. Products that didn't comply couldn't be placed on the EU market after January 28, 2023, or sold there after July 28, 2023.
There's a second question about octocrylene. Downs and colleagues tested sunscreens bought in the EU and the US for benzophenone, in a 2021 study in Chemical Research in Toxicology. Every product with octocrylene held it. Fresh off the shelf, the 16 octocrylene products averaged 39 mg/kg, and the one without octocrylene had none they could detect. After six weeks of the FDA's accelerated aging protocol, they measured up to 435 mg/kg. Their explanation is chemistry. Octocrylene breaks down into benzophenone through a reaction called a retro-aldol condensation.
It's one study. It measured products and didn't test anyone who'd used them, and the authors note benzophenone is banned in US food and food packaging. They asked regulators to review octocrylene quickly. That's a real finding with an open end, so I'll leave it there.
Why did Hawaii restrict oxybenzone and octinoxate?
Hawaii acted on two filters, for a reason that had nothing to do with blood levels. Its 2018 law, Senate Bill 2571, made it unlawful from January 1, 2021, to sell or distribute sunscreen containing oxybenzone or octinoxate in the state without a prescription from a licensed healthcare provider. It's a sales rule for the state, and the legislature's stated reason was the reef.
Its findings say the two chemicals cause mortality in developing coral and genetic damage in coral and other marine organisms, and that swimming carries them into Hawaii's water. The law's stated purpose is to preserve marine ecosystems, coral reefs among them. That's the legislature's reading of the reef science. It's written into a water pollution bill, and it's about the ocean more than the person wearing the screen.
What do we put on instead?
Nothing goes on in place of sunscreen, because we don't make one and a tallow balm doesn't screen UV. The balm comes after, in the evening. Our post on oil cleansing, then tallow covers taking sunscreen off at night, and the tallow and SPF hub covers where a balm fits around the sun.
Picking a sunscreen is a dermatologist's call, more so if you're pregnant or choosing for a child. If one of these six worries you, the FDA's 2019 rule is a fair place to start, since zinc oxide and titanium dioxide were the two filters it proposed as safe and effective. Whatever goes on at night is cosmetic care, not a treatment. Your provider's plan comes first.
If you'd rather not read five product pages, Find my balm asks two minutes of questions and hands you the jar.
Questions we hear
Is chemical sunscreen bad for you?
The evidence hasn't answered that yet, and the FDA hasn't finished its review of the common chemical filters. In a 2020 FDA trial, six of those filters reached the blood above the agency's 0.5 ng/mL testing threshold after a single application. That threshold triggers more testing and isn't a finding of harm. The EU did cut oxybenzone to 2.2% in body products in 2022, and the FDA still tells people to keep using sunscreen.
Why is oxybenzone banned in Hawaii?
Hawaii's 2018 law made it unlawful, starting January 1, 2021, to sell or distribute sunscreen containing oxybenzone or octinoxate in the state without a prescription. The legislature's stated reason was the reef. Its findings say the two chemicals cause mortality in developing coral and genetic damage to coral and other marine organisms. It's a rule about sales in Hawaii, built on findings about marine life.
Is there benzene in sunscreen?
Benzene isn't a sunscreen ingredient, and it's turned up as a contaminant in some batches. In May 2021, the testing company Valisure reported detectable benzene in 27% of its samples from 294 batches, with 14 lots of sunscreen and after-sun products between 2.78 and 6.26 parts per million. Johnson and Johnson recalled all lots of five aerosol sunscreen lines in July 2021 after its own testing found low levels.
Is homosalate safe?
The US record isn't finished, so there's no FDA verdict either way. In the FDA's 2020 trial, homosalate reached the blood at up to 23.1 ng/mL, the second highest of the six filters tested and well above the agency's 0.5 ng/mL testing threshold. The FDA's 2019 proposed rule put it among twelve filters without enough data to be called safe and effective. Crossing the threshold calls for more testing, and it isn't a finding of harm.
Is octocrylene safe?
The EU's consumer safety committee concluded in 2021 that octocrylene is safe as a UV filter at up to 10% when used on its own, and the EU now caps it at 9% in propellant sprays. A 2021 lab study by Downs and colleagues found benzophenone in octocrylene sunscreens, averaging 39 mg/kg in new products and reaching as much as 435 mg/kg after accelerated aging. The FDA hasn't ruled on it yet.
Go deeper
The beef tallow for skin guide covers what a balm does on skin once the day's done. How to read a tallow label walks through an ingredient list line by line, and why there's no water in our balms explains why ours carry no preservative system. Our Never List names everything we keep out of every jar we pour. For the rest of the sun set, mineral vs chemical sunscreen explains how the two kinds of filter work, zinc oxide vs titanium dioxide compares the two minerals, and is sunscreen bad for you takes on the posts that say skip it altogether. PFAS, heavy metals and microplastics in cosmetics reads the testing on the rest of the shelf the same way. Vitamin D and sunscreen covers what the research found and why food has no SPF.
Sources
- Matta MK and colleagues (2020). Effect of sunscreen application on plasma concentration of sunscreen active ingredients: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA 323(3):256 to 267.
- US Food and Drug Administration (2019). Sunscreen drug products for over-the-counter human use, proposed rule, February 26, 2019. Federal Register 84:6204 to 6275.
- US Food and Drug Administration (2026). Sunscreen: how to help protect your skin from the sun, content current as of September 10, 2026. FDA.
- Valisure (2021). Valisure detects benzene in sunscreen, May 25, 2021. Valisure.
- Johnson & Johnson Consumer (2021). Voluntary recall of specific Neutrogena and Aveeno aerosol sunscreen products due to the presence of benzene, July 14, 2021. FDA.
- European Commission (2022). Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1176 of 7 July 2022 on the use of certain UV filters in cosmetic products. EUR-Lex.
- Downs CA and colleagues (2021). Benzophenone accumulates over time from the degradation of octocrylene in commercial sunscreen products. Chemical Research in Toxicology 34(4):1046 to 1054.
- Hawaii State Legislature (2018). SB 2571 CD1, a bill for an act relating to water pollution. Twenty-Ninth Legislature of the State of Hawaii.
Brian is the founder of Craft Tallow, a small-batch tallow skincare line shipped from Cottonwood Heights, Utah, built on 100% grass-fed suet. Questions? Reply to any email from us; it lands with him.