FDA approves new sunscreen filter after 26-year wait

FDA approves – After a decades-long gap that left American shoppers with white casts, sticky textures, and weaker UVA coverage, the FDA has approved bemotrizinol (Tinosorb S/BEMT) — the first new chemical sunscreen filter since 1999. The approval comes as misinformation spre

On the sunniest morning at Apple Park, the question wasn’t political. It was practical.

Did you put on sunscreen?

At WWDC, many people she approached said no. Victoria Song says she could practically feel the familiar resistance in the room — the expectation that sunscreen would be greasy. hard to rub in. or likely to sting. She’d reach into her bag anyway. pull out a tube of Round Lab Birch Juice Moisturizing Sun Cream. and show them how it looks when you actually use it: three identical lines of Korea’s SPF technology on their hands. no white cast. no slick residue.

Most of them winced at first, then froze when it wasn’t sticky and didn’t behave the way American sunscreen has trained people to expect for years.

For more than 26 years. Song argues. sunscreen options in the United States have lagged behind what’s been available in other parts of the world. She points to “white casts. ” sticky textures. and a chemical smell — plus the uncomfortable reality that many users begrudgingly apply too little and may not be getting the SPF on the label. (She notes that you need a quarter teaspoon for your face alone.) In her telling. Americans have even been dodging sunscreen in a way that feels almost cinematic — “Neo dodging bullets” — even though skin cancer remains the most common cancer in the US.

That stubborn mismatch is getting harder to ignore now that the FDA has approved a new chemical sunscreen filter for the first time since 1999.

The filter is bemotrizinol, also known as Tinosorb S or BEMT.

For cosmetic chemists in the US. the pitch is specific: it offers broad-spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays. is much more photostable. can help stabilize other sunscreen filters. and is less likely to be absorbed into the bloodstream because it’s a larger molecule. The chain of consequences matters because. in the years since regulators raised alarm bells about certain chemical filters. fear has become a kind of cultural shorthand — even when the regulatory story was more about missing data than proven danger.

The anti-sunscreen backlash flared up in 2019 and 2021 after the FDA tweaked sunscreen regulations and requested more safety data for some chemical sunscreen filters. Researchers had found that older chemical filters were absorbed into the bloodstream. Mineral sunscreens like zinc and titanium dioxide were deemed GRASE — generally recognized as safe and effective. Song adds that BEMT, too, has been deemed GRASE.

Still, the narrative stuck: mineral is superior, chemical is bad.

Song says the underlying reality is simpler. Mineral and chemical sunscreens largely protect skin the same way: by absorbing UV rays and using a chemical reaction to dissipate them into heat. The difference is that mineral sunscreens reflect a small portion of UV rays and sit atop the skin. while chemical filters are absorbed.

Online, that distinction is getting swallowed by something far more engaging: videos.

She points to TikTok where the loudest anti-sunscreen claims are sometimes built like tutorials. In one video. a young man argues you can naturally build up a “solar callus” or sun tolerance to getting burned while filming himself in the ocean. In another. a young woman says eating healthy foods rich in polyphenols and antioxidants will help the body be more resilient to sunburn; she also casts sunscreens with “hard-to-pronounce chemicals” as the enemy and pushes “all-natural” mineral sunscreens — plus beef tallow.

Song doesn’t mince words about the science: antioxidants may help with free radical damage, but they cannot replace sunscreen. And she says there’s no scientific evidence that “sun tolerance” can be built. She also calls out the broader trend of tanning logic — noting that the natural sun causes sunburns and skin cancer.

The misinformation problem isn’t just noise, either. Researchers from the University of Alberta studied nearly 1,000 TikTok videos spanning the top five sunscreen-related hashtags. They found that 87 percent promoted sunscreen use. The bad news is that the 6 percent pushing misinformation — including claims that sunscreen causes cancer — received much higher engagement.

The practical impact, Song says, is that teens appear to be flocking back to tanning beds and checking the UV index — not to avoid excessive sun exposure, but to seek it out.

A survey by the American Academy of Dermatology Association adds another layer. About half of Americans scored a C or lower on sun safety knowledge, while a third of Gen Z scored a D or an F. The survey also found that 29 percent of US adults believe a tan is fine so long as you don’t burn.

Song points to one more aggravating factor: Health Secretary RFK Jr. withdrew a proposed FDA rule that would’ve banned tanning beds for minors. She describes RFK Jr. as a proponent of tanning, and notes that the MAHA movement believes there’s a public war on alternative therapies such as “sunshine.”

But her bottom line is blunt. There’s no such thing as a “safe” tan — any tan is a sign that skin damage has accumulated.

That brings the story back to BEMT.

Song makes clear why this new filter could be more than an incremental upgrade. BEMT is easier to formulate with and is more effective in lower concentrations, and she describes it as a hero ingredient in many international sunscreens.

By contrast. she says US sunscreens have tended to underperform against UVA rays — the type that penetrates more deeply into skin. is responsible for tanning and signs of aging. and contributes to long-term skin cancer. UVB rays, she says, directly harm skin through sunburns and can lead to DNA mutations that cause skin cancer.

She cites a 2017 study that found that out of 20 US sunscreens, only 11 passed Europe’s higher standards for UVA protection. She also says US products typically relied on avobenzone for UVA protection. and that avobenzone is not photostable — it degrades rapidly in sunlight. To achieve broad-spectrum protection. avobenzone had to be mixed with other filters. but she says the result was that avobenzone also degraded the stability of those other filters.

If better options exist abroad, why didn’t the US simply import them and move on?

One major reason is regulatory structure. In the US, sunscreen is regulated as an over-the-counter drug. Most other countries regulate it as a cosmetic. Song notes that Australia is an exception, with a more streamlined process than the FDA.

As a result, any new sunscreen filter has to pass rigorous and extremely expensive testing. From a business perspective, she says, cosmetics companies concluded that the effort wasn’t worth redoing expensive testing for a product that other international regulators had already accepted as safe.

For her, that slow machine is familiar. She compares it to the FDA clearance process for wearables. describing it as an ordeal and a reason some health tech from CES ends up as vaporware — though she emphasizes that this is the clearance process for medical devices. and that drug approvals are far more involved.

DSM-Firmenich applied to have BEMT approved in 2005, but Song says it sat in FDA regulatory hell for years. Then. in 2020. the CARES Act helped streamline the over-the-counter approval process. and DSM-Firmenich was able to restart the process in late 2024. She says the company’s bill for testing and development is likely to top $20 million.

That’s two truths at once: BEMT is heavily studied, and it still took 26 years and tens of millions of dollars for a filter that — according to the long-running research base — already had ample safety and efficacy evidence.

There’s another consequence of those delays, too: a gray market for “the good stuff.”

Song describes one option as obvious — asking friends traveling abroad to bring back superior sunscreens as souvenirs. something she says she does every year when family members visit Korea. A grayer route has involved export sites for international cosmetics. For a long time. she says. authorities turned a blind eye to Korean. Japanese. and European brands selling their superior sunscreens on TikTok Shop and other retailers.

But in the last two years or so. the FDA and Customs and Border Protection have been cracking down on OTC sunscreen compliance under the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act. Sunscreen fans began noticing their favorite products disappearing. Song says popular brands like Beauty of Joseon and Round Lab had to reformulate worse versions of their products to sell in the US. She adds that subreddits filled up with angry sunscreen lovers trying to find the original formulations or figure out why imported packages were suddenly seized at customs.

BEMT’s approval doesn’t erase that tension overnight.

For starters, Song says newer sunscreen formulations likely won’t arrive until August or September — after peak vacation time. She also notes that this is only one new filter. Korea, Japan, and Europe have access to around 34 filters, while the US now has access to 16.

Even with the gap still there, she frames the shift as real. Progress is progress, and she points to the recently passed SAFE Sunscreen Standards Act, which she says streamlines the filter approval process and requires the FDA to evaluate filters already used in other countries.

It’s a hopeful end note for a season that’s already about to begin. Song ends with a warning to ignore TikTok tanning propaganda and a promise that this is likely the last summer when Americans have to tolerate “crappy sunscreens” before better formulas become widely available.

She’s already picturing a future where she doesn’t have to chase tech journalists at I/O and WWDC — threatening them with tubes of Korean sunscreen — just to get them to put it on in the first place.

FDA sunscreen bemotrizinol Tinosorb S BEMT UVA UVB skin cancer misinformation TikTok Round Lab Beauty of Joseon DSM-Firmenich CARES Act Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act SAFE Sunscreen Standards Act