Skin expert slams worrying sun cream trend - 'Beyond shocked'

Irish Daily Mirror

25-05-2025

One of Ireland's leading skin experts has revealed a worrying trend that some people are ditching sun protection as they believe it's dangerous.
Eavanna Breen said she was shocked to learn that despite continuous campaigns on the importance of SPF, some think it's a hoax. After appearing on Virgin Media's Ireland AM this week to speak about sun safety, the skin expert was flooded with social media comments deterring people from using sunscreen.
She told the Irish Mirror: 'It really only came to light for me after Ireland AM posted on their Instagram a clip of my interview. The amount of comments in it saying that sunscreens are toxic, that they contain chemicals that cause cancer and that we shouldn't be using them.
'Some people were even suggesting to make their own. I was just beyond shocked at the volume of people that believe that sunscreen is bad for them.'
The chemicals in sunscreen that cause concern include oxybenzone, retinyl palmitate and parabens. However, none of these chemicals have been classified as a cancer-causing substance by any major scientific organisation.
Oxybenzone gets the worst reputation, due to concerns that it might act as a hormone disruptor - a chemical that has the ability to interfere with the body's natural hormone production.
One study which used rats found it disrupted their hormones, however, the rodents were fed oxybenzone; it wasn't placed on their skin. The Journal of American Academy of Dermatology found it would take an individual 277 years of sunscreen use to achieve the equivalent systemic dose that produced effects in these rat studies.
Eavanna said she thinks there's a bit of 'tin foil on the head' with people who are rejecting sun protection. She added: 'People are so disillusioned with governments and scientists, and since the pandemic, there's just a huge lack of trust out there.
'I think that's what it's about. They just don't trust the scientists. They don't trust science. And, yeah, it's just this growing conspiracy theory that we're not being told everything that we need to know.'
The skin expert said it's 'worrying and upsetting' that people believe this, as skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in Ireland. This country also has the highest incidence of skin cancer in Europe.
According to the Irish Cancer Society, there are almost 12,000 cases of skin cancer diagnosed in Ireland every year, with nine out of ten being caused by ultraviolet radiation (UV rays) from the sun or sunbeds.
The owner of the Eavanna Breen Skin Clinic said she believes the prevalence is high because we are less educated than other countries, and Irish people are 'obsessed' with getting a tan. She continued: 'I think that that culture comes from the fact that we don't have a lot of sunshine, we're not as educated about it.
'In Australia, they know the drill. They know because it's constant. The message is there constantly, the facts, the science, the government guidelines, they're always being bombarded with how to manage and how to cope but we just don't have that here in Ireland.'
Eavanna said the best tan is from a bottle, and that people don't need to worry about harmful chemicals in self-tanners. She added: 'Within the EU consumer safety they monitor toxins so closely in skincare.
'So within any skincare product, all the ingredients are measured for their toxicity, so anything that you buy that's made in the EU is pretty safe. So for people to say that they're full of chemicals in the same way they would say that about sunscreens, it's just not true.
'Yes, there are chemicals, but they are chemicals in safe doses that won't cause cancer and don't disrupt your endocrine system. So they are safe.'