Butyloctyl salicylate is NOT Reef Safe

WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN HURT YOU — AND FUTURE GENERATIONS

Butyloctyl salicylate is a new ingredient of emerging concern and may be hiding in your sunscreen

With consumers demanding ever-increasing SPF values, many companies today are using SPF ‘boosters’ in their formulas to increase that number. Butyloctyl salicylate is a relatively new inactive ingredient in sunscreens that boosts an SPF factor by not allowing the skin to redden.  Studies have shown that the skin is still getting damaged, it is just not turning red.  But because SPF factors are determined by HOW red your skin gets after exposure, reducing redness allows for a higher SPF factor WITHOUT a true increase in UV protection.

If you’re like most people and just check your sunscreen for the active ingredients, you need to reconsider that decision. If it’s there, butyloctyl salicylate will be listed under inactive ingredients, probably toward the beginning if alphabetical or the end if not of what is often a long and complicated list of ingredients that are difficult to pronounce, and it’s far more common than you would expect.

There are obvious ethical issues associated with this practice, and we would even debate if this should be legal, especially when used in formulas for children and babies.

What really makes me angry and doesn’t feel ethical at all is when ‘natural’ companies offering ‘mineral’ sunscreens include this ingredient in their formulas.  To make it even worse, butyloctyl saliciylate (I’ll appropriately call it BS for simplicity) is also a concern for pregnant women as it may lead to birth defects.  BS has a similar chemical structure as aspirin (acetyl salicylic acid) which warns against use when pregnant. Sunscreens using this ingredient do not carry that warning, and in our opinion, would NOT be pregnancy safe.  Knowing that everything we put on our bodies has the potential to be absorbed into our skin, not labeling it as a concern seems very wrong! (It is already banned in the UK, by the way, so hopefully US regulators are paying attention.)

Butyloctyl salicylate is also not reef safe, as its categorized as ‘Aquatic Chronic 4’ – May cause long lasting harmful effects to aquatic life.’ (Source: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Butyloctyl-salicylate#section=Hazards-Identification)

I asked two brand owners why they had BS in their formulas.  They didn’t seem to have any answer for me.  Most likely because they’re not chemists, they didn’t formulate their products, and trusted the large contract lab to formulate something for them.  That is not us.  We consciously choose every ingredient in our formulas for efficacy AND safety.

The only way to truly know what is safe and what a product contains is to buy from a manufacturer that makes all of its products in its own facility, intimately controls what ingredients are included in their formulas and prevents harmful ingredients from entering their facility, eliminating the risk of cross contamination.  That company needs to have third-party certifications, controls the supply chain and knows how raw ingredients are being stored to ensure no contaminants enter their products.

And lastly, and most importantly, they must be able to pass the Protect Land+Sea certification and they must test their products to show that they are not harmful to humans, fish, c. Elegans and coral larvae.

There is only one who has followed these steps and is tested and proven not to harm coral larvae.  Stream2Sea.  I’m not saying we are perfect, but we are doing our best to make sure we offer you, your families and our blue planet the safest, most effective products we can.  And as we learn more, we do better. We did the science and research for you.