New EU regulations for Sunscreens: Say Goodbye to Natural Sunscreens

"New European regulations for sunscreens will soon require levels of UVA protection that are impossible to achieve with natural mineral sun filters such as the titanium dioxide in Dr.Hauschka Sunscreens. In order to meet the requirements of these new regulations and maintain our products' SPF ratings, we would be forced to reformulate using synthetic filters."Our unwavering dedication to pure, holistic skin care and BDIH guidelines for natural ingredients prevent us from using synthetic sun filters in our preparations. As a result, Dr.Hauschka Skin Care has made the difficult decision to discontinue our existing sun care range."

As of January 1, 2009, Dr.Hauschka Sun Care products will no longer be available in the U.S."

In September 2006, the European Commission introduced new guidelines for the labelling of sunscreens, as potentially misleading claims about the level of sun protection offered reached the point of controversy. A report in July 2006 found that sun creams claiming to have Sun Protection Factor (SPF) 15 were giving much lower protection, with the lowest measuring SPF 6.3. The health implications were clearly quite serious.

The EC responded by recommending a new labelling system, currently in the process of being brought into effect. New safety margins will mean that products will have to have a buffer zone of 33%, so those which currently offer SPF 15 will have to test for protection at SPF 19.95. The SPF labelling system will also be phased out in favour of something simpler. It will soon no longer be possible for companies acting within the new guidelines to claim ‘complete protection’. Furthermore, sunscreens will have to provide protection against both types of damaging sun rays, UVA and UVB, at a ratio of 1:3.

When chemical sun protection factors are used it is not difficult to achieve the required 1:3 ratio. However, using chemical sun protection factors is out of the question. The result of this new system is that many ‘natural’ product companies are discontinuing their sunscreen ranges. Weleda, Urtekram, Dr. Hauskha, Living Nature and Honesty are no longer producing sunscreens.

The Environment Working Group, a US based not-for-profit organisation which uses information to defend public health and the environment, publishes the Skin Deep website. This is a comprehensive database of the ingredients found in cosmetics products which is founded on research collated from government, industry or academic studies or assessments. It is possible to search for substances, and the results are broken down into different types of risk, ranging from cancer to the ability of substances to accumulate in organisms or the environment (bioaccumulation). The results are summarised in a hazard rating of one to ten and a percentage figure for the data gap, which is a measure of how much is unknown about an ingredient. 0-2 represents a low hazard; 3-6 a moderate hazard and 7-10 a high hazard.

In the sense that we will no longer have mineral based sunscreens to use in future, other than chemical-based sunscreen which usually offered higher SPF, i am thinking to stock up few more bottles of Living Nature sunscreens before it is totally out of stock.

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