Aussie experts put 20 popular sunscreens to the test - 16 FAILED to meet the SPF claims on their labels. Read the full list here
Millions of Aussies may be unknowingly risking serious sun damage, with a shocking new investigation revealing that many of our most trusted sunscreen brands could be offering far less protection than they promise.
Despite being drilled with the 'Slip, Slop, Slap, and Wrap' mantra from childhood, new lab testing shows that even diligent sunscreen-wearers may not be as sun-safe as they think.
In an explosive investigation by consumer advocacy group CHOICE, 20 of the most popular sunscreens on Aussie shelves were put to the test - and only four lived up to their lofty SPF 50+ claims.
That's right. Just four.
The rest? A worrying number delivered SPF ratings as low as four, a far cry from the 50+ sun barrier they boldly advertise. In some cases, that's barely better than wearing nothing at all.
'Consumers expect sunscreen to protect them in line with the SPF rating on the product, but as our testing has shown, the SPF label doesn't always match what's in the bottle,' CHOICE's CEO Ashley de Silva said.
Their latest sunscreen test, conducted in a certified lab, found that 16 out of 20 sunscreens failed to meet the protection level printed on their packaging. Some were off by more than 40 SPF points.
Big names caught out included the Cancer Council, Neutrogena, Bondi Sands, Ultra Violette, Coles and Woolworths.
Some of these widely sold products tested in the SPF 20s and 30s, despite being labelled as SPF 50+, a potentially dangerous discrepancy in a country with one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world.
However, the most alarming was one of the most expensive sunscreens tested - Ultra Violette's Lean Screen SPF50+ which retails for $52.
'Despite doing rigorous testing of this sunscreen the first time, we were so perturbed by the results that we decided to delay publishing and test a different batch of the Ultra Violette sunscreen at a completely different lab in Germany to confirm the results,' CHOICE said in its report.
'Those results came back with a reported SPF of five, almost identical to our initial test.'
However, Ultra Violette has disputed CHOICE's testing methodology and results, stating that it did not arbitrarily label its sunscreen SPF 50+ label but rather followed the guidelines set by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
'We do not accept these results as even remotely accurate,' an Ultra Violette spokesperson said.
'Lean Screen contains 22.75 per cent zinc oxide, a level at which, when applied sufficiently, would render a testing result of SPF 4 scientifically impossible.'
Of the 20 sunscreens tested, only four passed the SPF test - including Cancer Council Kids Sunscreen SPF 50+, which was found to have an actual SPF of 52.
The surprising results of the 20 popular sunscreens tested
Australian consumer watchdog CHOICE has tested 20 popular sunscreens, with 16 failing to meet the SPF50 protection claims on their labels.
Of the 20 sunscreens tested, only four passed the SPF test:
Cancer Council Kids Sunscreen SPF 50+ passed with a reported SPF of 52
La Roche-Posay Anthelios Wet Skin Sunscreen 50+ passed with a reported SPF of 72
Mecca Cosmetica To Save Body SPF 50+ Hydrating Sunscreen passed with a reported SPF of 51
Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Body Lotion SPF 50 passed with a reported SPF of 56
Sunscreens that failed the SPF test:
SPF results in the 10s
Ultra Violette Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Skinscreen - tested at 4
SPF results in the 20s
Aldi Ombra 50+ – tested at 26
Banana Boat Baby Zinc Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+ – tested at 28
Bondi Sands SPF 50+ Zinc Mineral Body Lotion – tested at 26
Cancer Council Everyday Value Sunscreen 50 – tested at 27
Cancer Council Ultra Sunscreen 50+ – tested at 24
Neutrogena Sheer Zinc Dry-Touch Lotion SPF 50 – tested at 24
Woolworths Sunscreen Everyday Tube SPF 50+ – tested at 27
SPF results in the 30s
Banana Boat Sport Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+ – tested at 35
Bondi Sands SPF 50+ Fragrance Free Sunscreen – tested at 32
Cancer Council Kids Clear Zinc 50+ – tested at 33
Invisible Zinc Face + Body Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50 – tested at 38
SPF results in the 40s
Coles SPF 50+ Sunscreen Ultra Tube – tested at 43
Nivea Sun Kids Ultra Protect and Play Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+ – tested at 41
Nivea Sun Protect and Moisture Lock SPF 50+ Sunscreen – tested at 40
Sun Bum Premium Moisturising Sunscreen Lotion 50+ – tested at 40
Source: Choice Australia
Australia is known for having some of the strictest sunscreen regulations in the world, ensuring safety, quality and efficacy - with all formulas required to be approved by the TGA.
The majority are listed medicines with an 'AUST L' identification number, while all sunscreens must adhere to the AS/NZS 2604:2021 standard.
According to CHOICE, the TGA relies purely on reports supplied by manufacturers from accredited laboratories, rather than conducting its own compliance testing on sunscreens.
Following the alarming investigation, CHOICE has informed both TGA and the ACCC of the results.
'Due to the inconsistencies we have found between the SPF claims of a sample of Australian sunscreens and their actual SPFs, CHOICE is calling on the TGA to conduct their own compliance testing, using current standards, rather than relying purely on reports from manufacturers,' the experts said.
CHOICE is Australia's leading independent consumer watchdog, known for its no-frills, laboratory-tested reviews of everyday products to hold brands accountable.
They work solely in the interest of Aussie consumers, exposing unsafe, dodgy or misleading products in the market.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
7 hours ago
- Reuters
US FDA puts on hold Rein Therapeutics' lung disease drug trial
June 12 (Reuters) - Rein Therapeutics (RNTX.O), opens new tab has paused patient enrollment and dosing in a mid-stage trial of its lung disease drug in the U.S. after the Food and Drug Administration placed a clinical hold, the drug developer said on Thursday. Shares of the company fell nearly 10% after the bell. The company was testing a drug named LTI-03 to treat patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The disease causes scarring of the lungs that makes it harder for them to work properly. Rein said in a filing that it is actively working with the FDA to remove the clinical hold. The FDA and Rein did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on why the hold was placed. The drug was well-tolerated and safe in an early-stage study in patients with IPF, the company said in the filing. No drug-related serious adverse events have been reported in any studies treating patients with LTI-03, it added. Rein continues to study the drug and enroll patients in Australia and Europe.
Daily Mail
18 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I was pregnant with triplets but only delivered one baby after my son 'ate his siblings' in the womb
A mother delivered just one baby despite being pregnant with triplets after he 'casually ate his siblings' in the womb, she has revealed. TikTok user @vfbabygirl28 - believed to be from New Zealand - shared ultrasound scans at different points during her pregnancy on the social media platform in a clip that has been viewed over 2.5 million times at the time of writing. A picture of the first scan showed two embryos as the mother-of-two captioned it: 'Goes into the first scan and find out I'm having twins...' As her pregnancy progressed, a second scan revealed she was actually having triplets. By the time she went in for her next ultrasound to 'check the triplets', only one embryo was visible in the scans as she quipped 'this guy just casually ate his siblings'. She finished her TikTok with a picture of her newborn baby, wearing a mint green jumper and beanie, sleeping peacefully along with the caption: 'Holyf***ingairball.' The video received over 16,000 comments, as several fellow TikTok users questioned whether her baby is a 'Chimera'. 'I've heard that twins or triplets that absorb each other have a higher chance of being Chimeras,' one person wrote. By the time she went in for her next ultrasound to 'check the triplets', only one embryo was visible in the scans as she quipped 'this guy just casually ate his siblings' A Chimera is a person who has cells from two or more sources, or fertilised eggs, resulting in different genetic makeup. According to WebMD, chimerism in humans occurs when a mother is pregnant with twins or triplets and one of the embryo dies or stops developing early on. If this happens, the surviving embryo sometimes absorbs its twin's cells. Several TikTok user shared this explanation for the woman's unusual experience, as one person noted: 'Sometimes when you have more than one baby, one fetus kinda absorbs the other one.' Another said: 'For people who are confused, let me explain. There are two possible reasons for this. 'In early pregnancy, multiple embryos can start developing (like twins or triplets), but then one or more stop growing and just get absorbed by the mother's body or the remaining fetus,' they shared. 'This is more common.' The second reason this might have happened, they continued, is if they're a 'Human Chimera'. They wrote: 'If two embryos fuse very early in development, they combine into one person with two sets of DNA and they become a chimera.' Some of the characteristics include 'patches of skin with different DNA' or two different blood types. Taking to the comments section, one person revealed they are a Chimera, noting: 'Half my stomach is a completely different shade' to the rest of their body. Another also shared: 'Hey! I'm a chimera because I absorbed my twin! I have two DNAs and distinct skin markings down the center of my body.' Springing to the baby's defence, another said: 'Just to clarify for non-medical folks in the comments. 'This adorable baby didn't actually EAT his siblings. Likely they didn't continue to develop (early miscarriage) and both baby and mum absorbed the cells/tissue to avoid miscarry [sic] of a perfectly healthy pregnancy,' they added. While some people made light of the revelation, others paid their respects to the unborn babies and praised the mother for her 'courage' while navigating the loss. One said: 'Everybody making jokes, but I can't imagine going from 1) not pregnant to pregnant, 2) having 1 baby to 2, 3) 2 to 3 babies, 4) 1 baby. 'That's hard!! For mind and body! You are strong girl!' Another asked the mother how she coped with losing two of the three fetuses, adding: 'Do you grieve for them like how mothers would grieve for miscarried children?' The woman, who also has a 13-year-old son, appeared to take the situation in her stride as she told one commenter her baby also 'ate' his siblings' personalities. She also shared insight into how she dealt with the situation, when another mom revealed she'd been through a similar experience. 'Omg mine too,' she began. 'There were two on my first scan & at my second, they told me baby A basically ate baby B. 'I was so confused, but just learnt to accept it over time.'
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
It is the sunscreen brand singled out by CHOICE as the single WORST failure in Australian SPF 50+ tests. Now the skincare giant furiously hits back
One of the most popular sunscreen brands singled out by a consumer group for failing to meet Australia's strict SPF 50+ regulations has furiously hit back at the controversial experiment. But consumer group CHOICE has revealed it was 'so perturbed' by the results of its extraordinary first experiment - which found Ultra Violette's Lean Screen SPF50+ Mattifying Zinc Skinscreen returned an SPF of just 4 - that it conducted a second test at an independent lab in Germany. CHOICE found that 16 of 20 sunscreens tested in Australia failed to meet the SPF protection claims on its labels, including big brands such as Cancer Council, Neutrogena, Bondi Sands, Coles and Woolworths. Ultra Violette's 'skinscreen', which retails for $52, was called out by CHOICE for having the 'most significant failure' in the entire experiment during the watchdog's first round of rigorous testing. 'We were so perturbed by the results that we decided to delay publishing and test a different batch of the Ultra Violette sunscreen at a completely different lab in Germany to confirm the results,' CHOICE experts said. 'Those results came back with a reported SPF of 5.' Just weeks before the bombshell report dropped, Ultra Violette released a slick social media video showcasing the costly process the business says it undertakes to ensure its products meet SPF requirements - singling out how it spent $150,000 on testing. 'Do you know how SPF is actually tested? Making our SKINSCREENS can cost up to $150,000 in testing alone,' the brand said at the time. 'We take the integrity of our products pretty damn seriously - no cutting corners here. We ensure you have the best protection (from both UVA and UVB), and the added skincare benefits to match, no matter where in the world you are.' The video, narrated by Ultra Violette's co-founder Ava Chandler-Matthews, took viewers behind the scenes of how the company tests its sunscreen products - dwelling on how it cost $150,000 to test them. 'Because we formulate our own products at Ultra Violette, we have to pay for all the testing upfront... It's expensive because you do it on real human skin,' Ava said. She explained that the brand undertake the costly process of SPF testing 'multiple times throughout the product development journey'. 'How it works is they apply a test patch of the sunscreen, then they burn you with a UV lamp, with and without the sunscreen,' Ava said. 'The amount of time it takes for your skin to burn is what determines the SPF, but that's the UVB test. The UVA test is done in a lab. We test to Australian standards first because that's always the hardest. After that, we test to FDA standards. 'All of our sunscreens globally are broad spectrum.' Ultra Violette responds to CHOICE At Ultra Violette we take misleading claims made about our products very seriously. Ultra Violette is deeply committed to the health and safety of our customers and only work with reputable, TGA licensed manufacturers who perform substantial quality release testing in accordance with the strictest SPF standards in the world. Given our commitment to producing the highest quality sunscreens for consumers, we do not accept these results as even remotely accurate. Ultra Violette first completed testing for Lean Screen in 2021 (with results of SPF of 64.32 to allow for an SPF 50+ rating), and again in 2024. However, to ensure complete transparency and peace of mind for our customers, we proactively initiated another urgent SPF test of the batch in question in April this year (2025). We retested our product in a full 10-person panel and the results have come back at 61.7, which is above the threshold required by the TGA to make a 50+ claim. Choice's recent retest only included 5 participants, where 2 results were considered non validated, resulting in a sample size of only 3. We rigorously retest our entire SPF range every two years. Lean Screen has been on the market for 5 years in 29 countries and we have not received a single substantiated claim of sunburn during use – reinforcing our confidence in the testing we have. If the Choice results represented the actual level of protection offered, we would have had hundreds of cases of reported sunburn and skin damage while using this product in real life situations. Read the full Ultra Violette statement and the April 2025 test result here. Ava claimed the brand went the extra mile by doing 'additional' testing on all of their sunscreens because, as she said, 'UVA protection is obviously very important to us'. 'The SPF testing is really just the start. When you own all your own formulations, you have to do stability testing which is to make sure the product is stable and contains the UV actives over time as well as clinical and panel testing,' she said. 'Developing all your own formulations, owning your own sunscreen brand and making that sunscreen brand global is really expensive,' she concluded. Following CHOICE's bombshell report, Ultra Violette disputed the claims, saying: 'Given our commitment to producing the highest quality sunscreens for consumers, we do not accept these results as even remotely accurate. 'Lean Screen contains 22.75 per cent zinc oxide, a level at which, when applied sufficiently, would render a testing result of SPF 4 scientifically impossible.' The brand said Lean Screen, like all UV formulas, are made by reputable, TGA-licensed manufacturers and tested to meet the strictest global SPF standards. 'To ensure complete transparency and peace of mind for our customers, when we were first alerted to CHOICE's testing, we immediately initiated another 10 person test on the batch in question at an independent lab,' an Ultra Violette spokesperson said. 'We proactively initiated another urgent SPF test of the batch in question in April this year (2025). We retested our product and the results have come back at 61.7, which is above the threshold required by the TGA to make a 50+ claim. 'CHOICE's recent retest only included five participants, where two results were considered non validated, resulting in a sample size of only three. 'Over the past four years, we have conducted three different tests at independent labs vs. Choice's 1.3 tests.' The surprising results of the 20 popular sunscreens tested Australian consumer watchdog CHOICE has tested 20 popular sunscreens, with 16 failing to meet the SPF50 protection claims on their labels. Of the 20 sunscreens tested, only four passed the SPF test: Cancer Council Kids Sunscreen SPF 50+ passed with a reported SPF of 52 La Roche-Posay Anthelios Wet Skin Sunscreen 50+ passed with a reported SPF of 72 Mecca Cosmetica To Save Body SPF 50+ Hydrating Sunscreen passed with a reported SPF of 51 Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Body Lotion SPF 50 passed with a reported SPF of 56 Sunscreens that failed the SPF test: SPF results in the 10s Ultra Violette Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Skinscreen - tested at 4 SPF results in the 20s Aldi Ombra 50+ – tested at 26 Banana Boat Baby Zinc Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+ – tested at 28 Bondi Sands SPF 50+ Zinc Mineral Body Lotion – tested at 26 Cancer Council Everyday Value Sunscreen 50 – tested at 27 Cancer Council Ultra Sunscreen 50+ – tested at 24 Neutrogena Sheer Zinc Dry-Touch Lotion SPF 50 – tested at 24 Woolworths Sunscreen Everyday Tube SPF 50+ – tested at 27 SPF results in the 30s Banana Boat Sport Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+ – tested at 35 Bondi Sands SPF 50+ Fragrance Free Sunscreen – tested at 32 Cancer Council Kids Clear Zinc 50+ – tested at 33 Invisible Zinc Face + Body Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50 – tested at 38 SPF results in the 40s Coles SPF 50+ Sunscreen Ultra Tube – tested at 43 Nivea Sun Kids Ultra Protect and Play Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50+ – tested at 41 Nivea Sun Protect and Moisture Lock SPF 50+ Sunscreen – tested at 40 Sun Bum Premium Moisturising Sunscreen Lotion 50+ – tested at 40
