Re’equil Sunscreen SPF 50 PA+++ product review

A review of this particular sunscreen has been requested by more than one reader! Its exciting for me that I am creating this feedback loop.

What damage are we trying to protect against when we use sunscreen?

Filters should protect against the deleterious effects of both UVA and UVB radiation:

Happy Skin Days’ sunscreen test

I apply this very basic test to all sunscreens that I test on this blog.

It passes all 1) to 4) criteria above.

3) What UVA and UVB sunscreen filters are present?

All the filters are listed in the first six ingredients, which indicates that sufficient amounts of filter are present for them to be effective in protecting against UV radiation.

Filters present are:

• Octocrylene (2nd ingredient): this is a UVB filter that is great choice because it provides strong UVB absorbance compared to other UVB filters and does so in modest amounts (ie you do not need a lot of it). Its also relatively photostable (ie does not breakdown as soon as it comes out of the tube)

• Tris Biphenyl triazine (3rd ingredient): this is a UVB and UVA filter. I will be honest I don’t see this often in products – see below for more discussion

• Octisalate (4th ingredient): this is a weak UVB filter that is not particularly photostable

• Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine (BEMT) (6th ingredient): BEMT is an excellent broadspectrum filter and has the following characteristics.
  • BEMT provides superior UVB as well as UVA protection. The UVAI protection it offers begins to taper off at about 360nm, indicating it provides inferior protection to Avobenzone.  Nevertheless, it’s still an excellent UVA filter. 
  • The filter is very photostable, so does not immediately start to breakdown as soon as the product comes out of the tube
  • BEMT has a large molecular weight (629 Dalton) meaning it won’t be absorbed into the skin.  
  • Finally, it does not have to be present in large quantities to give significant UVA protection.  Even 1.7% BEMT without any other ingredients, provides PA++ rating, which is much more than the PA protection offered by many Indian sunscreens.

Would I use this sunscreen?

I’m waiting for this sunscreen to come through the post, so that I can comment on the aesthetics of the product.

Based on the ingredient label alone, my current thoughts (subject to change) are:

• this is a Rs 460 sunscreen and at this price point, its competing with Lotus Herbals sunscreen. It is a formidably better sunscreen at this price point. It doesn’t contain parabens or Methylisothiazolinone, which are endemic in low-cost sunscreens.
• My only complaint is that this does not provide BEST IN CLASS protection against UVA radiation (see the geek note below), but at Rs 460 you should not expect it to.

If I only had Rs 500 to spend on sunscreen, I would buy either this sunscreen or Altruist SPF 50 (which is unavailable in India).

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You totally have permission to stop reading NOW if you are uninterested in some of the geekier parts of Tris-Biphenyl Triazine

TECHNICAL GEEKY PART

As I said before, I don’t see Tris-Biphenyl Triazine, a broadspectrum filter often in products. It is used in this product to provide primarily UVA protection and I wanted to compare it to other UVA filters: Avobenzone, Zinc Oxide and BEMT. This is the UVA absorbance profile of each at 5%.

As you can see Tris-Biphenyl Triazine does not provide best in class UVA protection at all.

In this product, Tris-Biphenyl Triazine is combined with BEMT and for the product to provide PA+++ protection, the minimum amount of Tris-Biphenyl Triazine is 5% and BEMT is 1.5%.

Does this product have that much BEMT in it, given BEMT is present as 6th ingredient? I am not so sure. I can definitively answer this self-imposed question by a lab verifying this.

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