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The original article has a link to a petition the lab is making to the government. There they show a table of sunscreens sorted by concentration of benzene. Most of the top 20 entries are nutrogena.



I think that's a bit misleading. The clearest pattern I see in that data is that sprays are particularly bad. The top of the list is dominated by them, out of all proportion to their prevalence in the market overall. Any manufacturer who makes a lot of different products, and particularly spray products, is likely to have some entries on that list. Indeed, if you look at Appendix A (the "not detected" list) you'll find a ton of other products from Neutrogena, Banana Boat, and all the other big players. And a much lower percentage of sprays.

Without adjusting for the number of products a vendor makes, and how closely they're related (e.g. 70SPF vs. 50SPF versions of the same thing), you're going to get the wrong idea of who the "bad guys" are. For example, "Fruit of the Earth" has only one product on either list, and it's on the bad one. Would you buy their product over a Neutrogena gel or lotion?


If they use a hydrocarbon propellant it’s not unlikely that it would contain some benzene. You could probably find some in many spray cans.

The EPA recommends avoiding aerosols if possible.

One of the down sides of moving away from CFCs is that some of the other chemicals used have their own problems.


Some of the products aren't even sunscreens, like "After-sun Aloe Vera Soothing Spray".




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