Sunscreen for children (educational education + rating of products with analysis of ingredients)

This time I set myself the task of choosing the most effective and safe sunscreen.

In many reviews of sunscreens, you can find stories about holidays at sea or in the mountains, in which the sunscreen prevented burns. This fact usually provides the basis for unambiguous conclusions about the effectiveness of the product. I would argue with the authors of such reviews. In fact, any cream with SPF 20 or higher will do to protect against burns. But often skin damage caused by solar radiation is not limited to burns. We cannot see or measure the damage caused to the skin by UVA radiation until a certain stage (the appearance of premature wrinkles or, worse, the development of melanoma). In this article, I tried to consider all the important points that need to be taken into account when choosing a quality cream.

Sunscreen for children | Characteristics of sun filters

When choosing sun protection, you should first pay attention to the type of filters (active sunscreen components). Main classification:

• Chemical. Protect after absorption. Each chemical filter has its own individual protection mechanism due to its own spectrum of chemical reactions. For protection, it is necessary to pre-apply the product, approximately 30 minutes in advance.
• Physical (mineral, reflectors). Protect while on the surface of the skin. They simply reflect light. Physical filters provide a higher level of protection. Due to their work on the surface of the skin, these filters are safer in terms of exposure to the skin. This type of filter works immediately after applying the product. The main disadvantage of products with physical filters is the high density of textures. Due to the dense textures of the filters, products with physical filters are difficult to apply and leave whitish marks on the surface of the skin.

From the graph above you can see that to protect against UVA waves, Zinc oxide or Avobenzone filters must be present.

Let's take a closer look at the most popular filters:

At the moment, the most popular physical filters are Zinc oxide and Titanium dioxide. The graph demonstrates the increased effectiveness of Titanium dioxide against UVB waves and the effectiveness of Zinc oxide against UVA.

Disadvantages of spray sunscreens

The spray version is very attractive due to its ease of application. I was warned against choosing a sunscreen spray by an FDA opinion piece (an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services). It turns out that scientists have great doubts about the safety and effectiveness of sunscreen sprays. They pose a serious inhalation hazard. Also, when applying products in the form of sprays, it is difficult to ensure uniform coverage.

If you apply logic, then in order to evenly distribute the product during application, you need to maintain a large distance from the skin. In this case, particles are likely to enter the respiratory tract.

Sunscreen for children |Vitamin A content in sunscreens

Another critical point when analyzing sunscreen formulations is the presence of vitamin A (retinol). Vitamin A in sunscreens may cause skin cancer. There is currently a debate in the European Commissions about banning vitamin A in sunscreens, but many organizations that regulate the safety of cosmetic ingredients have already started raising awareness on this issue. Details.

To be honest, when choosing a sunscreen, I did not come across a single product with vitamin A in its composition.

Requirements for safe sunscreen for babies

• the presence of safe filters (the best option is physical) against UVB and UVA radiation;
• form in the form of a cream, stick or lotion;
• no dangerous Oxybenzone filter , vitamin A and dangerous preservatives (the rating of the harmfulness of preservatives is given)

Rating of sunscreens for children

Let's move on to consider specific instances. For clarity, I have listed creams from different price segments. As expected, safe, expensive foreign funds took the first positions in the rating. Budgetary funds fell to the bottom of the ranking.

Please note that all products for babies are designed for use from six months. It is not recommended to leave a child in the open sun before 6 months. Clothes, umbrellas, etc. should be used as protection for up to 6 months.

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2	Update 07/15/2016: The toning option spreads well over the skin, but The cream failed the test under extreme conditions. Despite the declared fairly high SP, the cream failed to provide protection! Weeding the beds on a sunny July day ended with burnt skin. I'm lucky that Yana's skin is less sensitive to light than mine. I was the only one who got burned. I do not recommend this cream for fair-skinned people with sensitive skin. In general, I lost confidence in this brand, since SPF 30, at a minimum, should have prevented sunburn. By the way, the eco-friendly insect repellent Badger also failed to cope with its functions. Protection, if there is any, is minimal. Badger sunscreens can be recommended in conditions where there is no strong sun. Badger insect protection can be recommended when insects are not bothering you :-).
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When analyzing the composition, the following sources were used:

• www.ewg.org English site. In case of insufficient data, it may show index = 1, this means that the component is safe, but information about the lack of data with a red signal circle will be displayed below: Data available: Limited.
• cosdna.com English site. Substances whose harmfulness is in question are defined as neutral. You can check the security of a group of components at one time.

Regular readers have probably guessed that I wrote this post as part of choosing the optimal sun protection for Yana, and many of them are interested in what products I chose. Our cosmetic arsenal has been replenished with the following products:

• ATTITUDE, Little Ones, 100% Mineral Sun Protection (Iherb.com). There is currently a huge discount on this item on Iherb.com, so I couldn’t pass it up. There is only one component in it that raises doubts. Considering the price of the product and the moderate harm of this component, I cast aside my doubts.
• Badger Company with a tinting effect to eliminate whitish stains from zinc(Iherb.com). I am familiar firsthand with the procedure for applying zinc-based products, so I decided to smooth out this moment with a tinting option from the popular Badger line.

P.S. To receive a 10% discount for your first order at Iherb.com, also if you want to support the blog, use the referral code when purchasing SZS150.

I wish everyone only gentle sunshine!

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About the author Mom is boring

In the recent past, I was a software engineer. Favorite platforms ASP.NET, MS SQL. 14 years of experience in programming. Blogging since 2013 (year of Yana’s birth). In 2018, I turned my hobby into my favorite job. Now I'm a blogger!

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Sunscreen for children (educational education + rating of products with analysis of ingredients): 43 comments

1. Tatiana

   Ekaterina, hello! Thank you for the article. It’s a titanic effort to sort through all these substances. I choose sun protection at sea. I wanted to buy the La Cree brand, we use it, and we seem to be satisfied. But after reading some useful stuff from the VPS, for which I thank you again, I decided to check the composition. And here you go! There's even vitamin A! that's it.
   Ingredients: octocrylene, homosalate, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane, titanium dioxide, silica dimethicone, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor, sorbitan isostearate/polyglyceryl-3 polyricinoleate, isostearyl isostearate, C12-15 alkyl benzoate, glycerin, jojoba oil, avocado oil, aloe extract, cetyl stearyl alcohol, panthenol, licorice extract, caprylyl glycol, methylisothiazolinone, xanthan gum, allantoin, vitamin E, vitamin A, sodium EDTA, fragrance, water.

2. Catherine

   Ekaterina, hello!
   What cream did you end up using? Have you found something perfect for yourself?
   And another question about raspberry and carrot seed oils, which have an SPF of up to 15-50, up to coconut oil with an SPF of up to 7 (a friend uses it) - can these oils be used on children’s skin? And what do you think about their effectiveness? Do they protect? As for me, the advantage is that it is absolutely natural (it contains only oil and nothing else), but there seem to be no physical filters there, and wouldn’t such oil have any undesirable medicinal effect?
   Thanks for the site, I learned a lot.

3. Daria

   This summer we tested Goddess Garden. Very pleased. The child never got sunburned, although he periodically ran along the beach in the hottest sunshine. I did not renew the cream after swimming. There were no allergies either, although we are allergy sufferers.
   The tube lasted for a whole month (the child was one year and 9 months old at the time of the trip).
   I ordered from iherbe.

4. Ksenia

   Hello, Ekaterina! For some reason your referral code for IHerb does not work, I already placed an order, but I decided to write anyway, in case you need this information. Thank you so much for the wonderful selection of safe products, this is incredibly painstaking work.

5. Natalia

   An excellent article, but I still haven’t found a good remedy for a 4-month-old baby, because it’s a long wait with iherb... Then what can I buy in Moscow that is harmless?

6. Dmitriy

   Unexpectedly, a very practical article, with analytics, graphs and more. Thanks for your hard work. I saved the article.
   It is curious why by adding titanium dioxide, which provides a significantly greater level of protection against UVB, manufacturers reduce the content of zinc oxide.

7. Yana

   Hello, Ekaterina. Thank you for such a great job. I am in love with your site and have found a lot of new things here. I ask you for advice about this cream. What do you think?
   Baby Tan Sunscreen baby body cream SPF 45 UVA/UVB with cocoa and olive oils. Price 880 rub.
   Ingredients: Aqua/Water, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Fruit, Magnifera Indica (Mango) Seed Butter, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Prunus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Ceteareth 20, Glyceryl Stearate, Glyceryl Palmitate, Beeswax, Polyglyceryl-3-Diisostearate, ISOPROPYL MyRistate, 4-Methylbenzylidene Camphor, Avobenzone, Phenylbenzimidazole Sulfonic Acid, C itrus aurantium dulcis (Orange) Peel Oil, Cocos Nucifere (Coconut) Oil, Phenoxyethanol, Glyceryl Caprylate, Parfum/ Fragrance, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Hydroxyisoxexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Amyl Cinnamal, Citronellol, Geraniol, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Coumarin, Benzyl Alcohol, Anise Alcohol.
   It is positioned as a 100% natural product, but I doubt it.

8. Nina

   Ekaterina, good afternoon! Have you discovered any new products to protect your skin from the sun over the past year? maybe natura siberika (although I couldn’t find it) or other Russian manufacturers?
   And I join the question about products for adults. Thank you!!!

9. Daria

   Ekaterina, hello! Please tell me, did you use sunscreen only in the summer? Did you apply it only to exposed areas of the child’s body? Or on the face too?

10. Natalia

    Tell me, what sunscreen did you choose for yourself?

11. Elena

    Good afternoon. Thanks to you, I got acquainted with the iherb website and successfully used its services last year, ordering safe products for my baby and household chemicals. Now supplies are starting to run low and I’m also preoccupied with choosing sunscreen (which brought me to this article) and insect repellent. But while filling up my cart in iherb, I was horrified by the changed delivery conditions. Incredibly expensive, and I can’t take advantage of free shipping, since broxberry limits shipments to five kilograms, and all the items I need are heavy…. In short, I’m in a wild dilemma, tell me, have you encountered this problem and if so, what solutions do you see? Maybe you found a similar site with loyal delivery conditions or figured out how to assemble a basket without compromising the family budget? Or maybe I’m panicking in vain and this is temporary ‘craziness’ at iherb? Has this happened before? You've been using this site for a long time.
    P.S. The link for the Think, Thinkbaby tool is incorrect, it opens ATTITUDE.

12. Irina

    You are my godsend!) This summer I was actively looking for a good cream, but honestly I didn’t find anything and didn’t take the risk.

13. Galina

    We purchased Earth's Best (number 6 on the list) for the summer. I was very pleased with them! Since May we have been living in a dacha in the Moscow region. The summer was quite hot. The child was outside almost constantly, but always with cream. And by mid-August the skin is still the same “untanned.” For a one-year-old child it was enough to use for almost 3 months. In May I applied it to my face and hands, and since June I applied it to almost everything. In August we switched to Israeli Mommy Carey products. I'm also pleased with the result.

14. Marie

    Hello, how was the test drive of the sunscreens you purchased? I would like to know your opinion, whether they met your expectations. Thank you

    1. Post author

       Good day! Maria, information has been added to Badger cream above. In general, I have a mistrust of the company:

       Tinted sunscreen did not save me from skin burns in the latitudes of southern Siberia. Here I must add that my skin is very sensitive to the sun. Yana avoided the burn only because her skin was more resistant to the sun. It took me only three hours in the garden with Badger cream with a toning effect to get severely burned and experience discomfort from the burn for three days. There were no water treatments, which are known to catalyze tanning and can wash off sunscreen. Overall a big disappointment.
       We also tested the safe insect repellent Badger and it also turned out to be very weak. When we went to the shore of the reservoir, this remedy could not save us from mosquitoes and the rest had to be completed earlier than planned.