My view: Give it a miss
My thoughts
I love Marks & Spencer’s. One of my first memories is of a plum, velvet dress from St Michael’s (M&S’s former name). Despite a special place in my heart for M&S, I have to judge this product against the standard I have set out in this post – Infants and Kids: a short guide to sunscreen for a complete guide.
This product does contain BHT, a chemical that you do not want to apply to kids.
Please keep reading for a more technical explanation of the harmful chemical contained, otherwise see you next time!
1) Technical raison d’être for “Giving the Product a miss”
David Suzuki came up with a list of harmful chemicals to look out for in skincare products – the starting point for most folks looking for “clean” beauty products is this list, which is affectionately know as “David Suzuki’s dirty dozen.”
For adults, I don’t apply the David Suzuki criteria to all my product reviews. The main reason for this, is there are simply are not ENOUGH affordable alternatives in the market.
What’s the point of telling you not to use something for X,Y, Z reasons when I can’t give you a solution?
However, I do draw the line for infants and children, as we do have a responsibility to do better for them. So infants and kids, its the policy of this blog to reject products that contain the David Suzuki dirty dozen AND find alternative products.
1a) David Suzuki dirty dozen
- BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) and BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene)
- Coal tar dyes: p-phenylenediamine and colours listed as “CI” followed by a five digit number
- DEA-related ingredients
- Dibutyl phthalate
- Formaldehyde-releasing preservatives
- Parabens
- Parfum (a.k.a. fragrance)
- PEG compounds
- Petrolatum
- Siloxanes
- Sodium laureth sulfate
- Triclosan
The M&S product contains BHT, which are preservatives. From the David Suzuki website:
Limited evidence suggests that high doses of BHT may mimic estrogen [6], the primary female sex hormone, and prevent expression of male sex hormones [7], resulting in adverse reproductive affects. prevent expression of male sex hormones [7], resulting in adverse reproductive affects.
[6] Wada, H. et al., “In vitro estrogenicity of resin composites,” Journal of Dental Research 83, no. 3 (March 2004): 222-6. [7] Schrader, TJ and GM Cooke, “Examination of selected food additives and organochlorine food contaminants for androgenic activity in vitro,” Toxicological Sciences 53, no. 2 (February 2000): 278-88.
I could continue in similar vein, but that just feels like overkill. This preservative jumps out because there are sufficient alternatives to it…. Please write to me if you’d like more information on the other dirty dozen chemicals contained in this product.
2) Filters
As this product is made in the EU, it must comply with specific sunscreen regulations to be sold in the EU. These include:
- The minimum SPF of the product is 6
- Critical wavelength test of 370nm is met
- One-third of the SPF value of 50 goes towards UVA protection.
Even with my eyes shut, I know this product satisfies these criteria.
For more information please see read Why read the label, Do you understand your label? What to look for on a label.
This is not the case in India, where I must look at the ingredient label in depth.
3) UVA and UVB filters
- UVA Filter:
- Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane (common name – Avobenzone) (6/30)
- Methylene Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine (nano) (common name – Bisoctrizole) (11/30)
- UVB Filter:
- Octocrylene (5/30)
- Ethylhexyl Salicylate (common name – Octisalate) (10/30)
Note: * Ingredients are listed in descending order of quantity. The numbers in brackets (X/Y) defines the position (X) of an ingredient out of the total number of ingredients (Y). A full list of ingredients can be found below.