Today, Explained - Why American sunscreen sucks

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Better sunscreen exists, you just can’t get it in the US. Amanda Mull and Elise Hu explain why. This episode was produced by Jon Ehrens, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by David Herman, and hosted by Sam Sanders. If you liked this episode, check out Sam’s pop culture podcast Into It from Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network: https://bit.ly/intoit-tex Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This summer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got on social media and started talking about a big problem that needs attention right now. We are here to talk about sunscreen, specifically U.S. sunscreen and how to fix it. U.S. House member AOC ringing the alarm on sunscreen. I was in South Korea earlier this year, and it is so clear how far advanced the rest of the world is on sunscreen. I was in South Korea earlier this year and it is so clear how far advanced the rest of the world is on sunscreen. And we deserve better here in the U.S. AOC is right.

You might be surprised to know that most of the rest of the world has better sunscreen than the U.S. has. It has been since 1999. It was the last time that we had a new sunscreen filter in the United States. AOC wants to change that.

Here's the thing, though. There is something that we can do about this. This episode of Today Explained, why American sunscreen is so bad and how to fix it. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM.

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I didn't wear that much this summer. I won't wear that much this summer. I won't wear that much this fall. I probably won't wear that much in the winter because I don't like how it feels on my skin. It just feels bad. It gets in my eyes. It makes my skin way too greasy and that breaks me out. Then there are some sunscreens that turn my dark skin white. That's weird. Okay, it's weird. Anywho, our first guest, Amanda Mull of The Atlantic, she says, I am not alone. I think your experience is a really common one. Your reasons are valid and your method of dealing with them is also valid. The best thing you can do

is just cover your skin. Cover it up. You know, wear sunglasses, wear a hat, wear long sleeves, things like that. That's actually going to be better than sunscreen. If you stay in the shade, stay covered. But in situations where you're in direct sunlight and can't necessarily stay covered, I think that people's hesitancy to wear sunscreen matches pretty closely with what you've described. A lot of American sunscreens are kind of unpleasant. And that is what we are here to talk about today. Our sunscreen is whack. What is the problem, Amanda Moe? Well, the problem comes down to filters.

Those are the active ingredients in sunscreen. They're what prevents people from getting burned or from absorbing UV rays while they're out in direct sunlight. There are two types of filters. There are physical filters and chemical filters, which is a little bit misleading because they're all chemicals and they're all synthetic. But one turns your skin white and one doesn't. Right. One turns your skin white, one turns your skin oily. The chemical blockers are going to be generally the ones that feel a little bit oily or greasy. And what they do is they absorb UVA and UVB rays. And then the physical blockers are going to be the ones that tend to leave like a white or gray cast on your skin. Those are going to actually prevent the UVA and

UVB rays from making it to your skin at all. And those two categories are what comprise all of the approved active sunscreen ingredients in the United States. But here's the thing, and here's what AOC was talking about. The amount of chemicals that the American FDA has approved to be in sunscreen is just a smaller list of stuff than what the rest of the world has approved. Right. What the U.S. has is some older sunscreen technology. We haven't approved a new filter for use in the United States since 1999. In that time, a lot of filters have come on the market in Europe, in Asia, in Australia, that are a little bit easier to wear. They look better, they feel better, and they perform better. They provide better sun protection and less chemical downside.

But we're not allowed to have those, which is what AOC was on about. How surprised were you to see AOC wade into the great sunscreen debate? I was a little bit surprised. This is a topic that has come up over and over again over the years. And it's really hard to get much purchase with people who can actually make any kind of regulatory difference for this topic. It's something that a lot of people, a lot of anti-cancer activists, a lot of public health experts and advocates are really interested in, but it's just not like the sexiest topic. And it's not something that a lot of people are willing to sort of use their political capital to wade into. Yeah, well, it feels almost as if some people would say, this is so trivial. But as soon as you begin to look into sunscreen and how important it

can be in preventing a ton of skin problems, it does start to seem like not such a little thing. Right. There's very real health downsides for a lot of people, and especially for fairer people or people who are more inclined to sunburn. You just needed to wear some sunscreen. I was trying to get a tan. No, you were trying to get savage. Whose side are you on, Eddie? What? What sides are there? Mine are the O-zones. Choose one. But it affects everybody. It just, the risk is different depending on how prone you are to burning. Skin cancer is no joke. Like it is for some people pretty hard to diagnose, pretty hard to notice until it's gotten pretty bad. And it can be very, very deadly. And

even when it's not deadly, it is incredibly unpleasant. It can be disfiguring. It can require lots of nasty treatments, chemo, things like that, and preventing people from having to go through that or in preventing them from doing damage to their skin is really important. What exactly does AOC want? What she wants is to find some regulatory ways to put pressure on skincare companies to provide more of the information that the FDA is asking for, and also to, I think, adjust FDA expectations to take more seriously the abundance of real-world data and safety data that Europe and Asia has on some of these ingredients. So I think it's sort of like a combination effort of getting the skincare

companies to play ball a little bit more, and then also getting the FDA to be a little bit less rigid in their regulatory stance toward these ingredients specifically, because we do have such a preponderance of data from outside the U.S. What has the FDA said? Are they going to do anything? When I asked the FDA, they seemed not particularly enthusiastic about reconsidering all of the current data available. What they told me is that they want just more clinical data from these companies. That clinical data is very, very expensive to produce. So the companies have said, basically, we're not going to do it. We have all of this real-world use data from around the world,

from all kinds of different people with different skin tones, and this should be sufficient. I want to get into the weeds, if we can, about how the FDA approves sunscreen. So if you look at any bottle of sunscreen you buy, whether it's something from Sephora, something from Walmart, wherever, it's going to have a table on the back of it that explains the active ingredients, explains the dosages, explains the recommended usage. It's going to look a lot like what you find on the back of a bottle of Tylenol or other over-the-counter medications.

That's because the active ingredients in sunscreen and the active ingredients in things like Tylenol fall under the same regulatory regime at the FDA. That regime is referred to as GRACE. Grace? Grace, yes. Which stands for Generally Regarded as Safe and Effective. And the FDA's stance is that things that are going to be approved for OTC sale, which is what GRACE deals with, need to be extremely, extremely, extremely safe.

Because things that are just going to be sold to the general public without a prescription or without doctor oversight are going to be misused in lots of different ways. In sunscreen, that gets a little bit difficult because when you have new active ingredients that may be better, may be safer, developed outside of the United States, bringing them into the U.S. gets a little bit difficult. When you bring something before grace testing, once it gets approved, anybody can use it. You either have grace or you don't. So the clinical trials that are required for grace testing and that are being asked of manufacturers for the sunscreen filters is just really, really, really expensive. It takes a lot of time, a lot of labor, a lot of participants, a lot of data.

So companies will do that for prescription medications because they get then the exclusive and they can profit from it when none of their competitors can. But for Grace, no single company really wants to put up all of that money. Do all that for an $8 bottle of sunscreen. Right.

So the amount of rigor that the FDA is asking for is really only worth it if it's a drug that only you own that you can sell for a lot of money. Right. We have an approval situation set up to incentivize private development for singular private profit. And when you're dealing with these types of filters, that just doesn't create the correct set of incentives to get them past the finish line with the FDA. If you look at the European Union, for example, that is a regulatory body that is generally a little bit more stringent

than the United States in many of its safety decisions when it comes to food, cosmetics, prescription drugs. And the EU allows all of these ingredients in sunscreens. Really, it's almost everywhere except the U.S. There are a lot of people who take cosmetics and sun protection very seriously here in America, and they have begun to just order the better sunscreens from around the world and have them shipped here to America for their consumption. How big is that market? And have you tried these better sunscreens? How do they feel? That market is large and growing

is my understanding. It's a little bit hard to measure because it is sort of a gray market. Those products are not technically fully legal for sale in the United States, but they are very popular here. I have tried some of them. You can find sellers on Amazon that have them, or you can find sort of pop-up websites that might get shut down. It is a little bit dangerous to go that route because you don't know how they've been stored. You don't know what the supply chain is. You don't know if it's counterfeit product. But the ones that I've used that I felt comfortable using are, it's like applying a skincare ingredient. You can put it on and put your foundation over it or put it on and just go out of the house and no one can tell that you have sunscreen on. You can't tell that you have

sunscreen on. So then, knowing that, knowing that AOC is on the case, what is the likelihood that the FDA changes or loosens these rules to help us get better sunscreen over here? You know, I'm not entirely sure. In 2014, the Obama initiative to get these sunscreen actives advanced through the FDA. It looked like it was going to work. And then the FDA just kicked the can down the road, said that they needed more data. And then we've been in this stalemate ever since. But I do think that it's great that there is this more public interest in these ingredients, because public pressure is one of the only ways I think that we might get any sort of movement on this. I think that these ingredients are really,

really important because sunscreen is largely behavioral. If people don't like putting it on, if people don't enjoy using it. And people is me. Yes. I am people. Right. Then you just don't wear it. And we need to be able to develop products that produce the behaviors that we want in people. And we need sunscreens that look good on dark skin. We need sunscreens that look good on oily skin. Yo, tell me about it. Tell me about it. And the technology exists. We could do it. Her column is called The Material World. When we come back, we'll talk about the most sunscreened country on the planet. It's Today Explained. American Sunscreen Summer is here, and it's time to hit the beach.

But to avoid sunburn and other skin problems, make sure you protect yourself with American Sunscreen, the best sunscreen in America. American Sunscreen sunscreen. The best sunscreen in America. American sunscreen uses special FDA approved sunscreen technology to ensure you stay safe when having fun in the sun. Excuse me sir, might I trouble you for

a dollop of American sunscreen? I'm on holiday from England and I don't want my skin to burn in the hot American sun. Um, sure. There you go, kid. It's rather slimy, isn't it? Yeah, well...

Feels a little different to what we have in England, doesn't it? Looks rather like I've bathed in milk, doesn't it? Yeah, uh... Ooh-wee-ooh, American sunscreen! Well, anyway, this summer, make sure you bring a bottle of American... Excuse me, sir. Yeah, what do you want? It appears I'm rather sunburnt, sir. It's quite painful, actually.

It does appear that way, yes. I thought you said this was the best sunscreen in the world. No, no, no. I said America. I was very clear about that. Why, sir? Why would you do this to me? Wee-oo, American Sunscreen. spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained,

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And when it comes to the rest of the world, South Korea might have the best sunscreen. Or at least they are the most into sunscreen. Even AOC noted this. So we called up Elise Hu, who previously lived in South Korea for years. I'm Elise Hu. I am a journalist and recently became an author of a new book called Flawless Lessons and Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. I asked Elise just how big on sunscreen South Korea actually is. Oh my gosh. South Koreans apply sunscreen with a nearly religious fervor. So I think the numbers on it are something like 90% of South Korean women wear sunscreen every day.

And then for men, it's nearly 60%. So it is huge. This is something that boils down to culturally prescribed ideas of beautiful skin and societal norms for appearance. I want to talk more about that, but I want to ask you specifically how your sunscreen regimen changed when you got to South Korea. Exactly. And I was never serious about it. I grew up in the 90s and the aughts where people went to tanning beds and we put little like heart stickers on our bodies and little palm tree stickers on our bodies so that we could see how much we tanned in a pneumatic tube, right? So it was ridiculous how different

it was from what it was like growing up. And I went to South Korea and they put up sun sails at intersections while you're waiting for a red light. They give you shade just while you're standing at the corner. That's right. South Koreans are so good about avoiding direct sunlight that there are concerns that the population doesn't get enough vitamin D. So then they're actually having to supplement vitamin D. When you're vitamin D deficient, it could just be a matter of time before you develop chronic diseases. Before you get there, how often are you wearing sunscreen? Only when I went to the beach, right? Or went to the pool. So I was used to kind of just spraying it on my body. I was transformed by my time and kind of the cultural norm of sunscreen in South Korea and

just the prevention idea of caring for your skin, just preventing skin cancer, preventing premature aging. So by the time I came back, I became militant about it, not just for myself, but also for my three girls who cannot leave the house ever without putting sunscreen on their faces and bodies. Really? Yeah. I'm so serious about it. How much better is Korean sunscreen? Is it really worth the hype? I think it'd be foolish to say that an entire country of origin will be more superior than another country when it comes to products because in a global market,

you know, ingredients can be sourced by anyone or any company. So I would say it feels lighter. It's less greasy. This is anecdotal, but I feel like my biggest problem with sunscreens in the U.S., the ones that I put on my face, even the ones that I spend a lot of money on, is the stinging when it kind of runs off your face in the shower, right? Or when you sweat. And you don't want to do that when you're running. So I find that Korean sunscreens, maybe because of the ingredients in the formulation, tend to be more gentle, right? And then they don't tend to sting or burn.

Oh, I need that. When they run into my eyes. Yeah, I'll get you some. I'll get you some. I have some recommendations. As a bald man who sweats a lot, whenever I wear sunscreen, if I am at all warm,

within three minutes, my eyes are burning. See, you get that itching and cracking stuff. And look, boom, even burning. Now that's a really tough case. Anywho, anywho, you have done sunscreen in Korea. You have done sunscreen in the U.S.

You've looked into the business of the beauty and cosmetic industry for your book. Give us a verdict. Should people be wearing sunscreen every day? It is so crucial. It is the pillar of my skincare routine. So Korea is known for its 10-step or multi-step, at least, skincare routine. Yeah, man. It starts with two

kinds of cleansing. It goes into toner, it goes into essences and ampoules, and then various kinds of moisturizers. And then there's a sheet mask. But the most important part, the most important step, and I think that there's wide agreement on this among Korean dermatologists is sunscreen. The incidence of early aging and incidence of skin cancer are far less per capita in Northeast Asia, so populations like South Korea and Japan and China, than the incidence of skin cancer in the West. And I think a lot of it is owed to these cultural norms of sun protection and prevention. You've written about this in your book, Flawless. Extreme sunscreen culture in Korea plays into some cultural stuff going on in the country as well.

Anytime we're talking about beauty culture, then we have to remember that there are standards that are often shaped by patriarchy, globally, white supremacy, colonialism, and then obviously the big one, capitalism. In South Korea, I learned about this idea of lookism, which is looks-based discrimination. It's another form of oppression, right? Because your economic capital, whether you get jobs, can be dependent on whether you fit the current beauty standards of the day. So resumes would often require headshots. Every time you go and get a passport photo, they would Photoshop those by default. Oh my goodness! Yeah, because there's an expectation that you have really smooth skin and you don't

have hairs out of place and that your jaw isn't too wide. So then you're describing a South Korean culture that isn't just big on sunscreen. It's big on body modification to achieve certain beauty ideals. Does that lead to a cosmetic and beauty industry that just has more stuff than America has? Absolutely. There's so much cool stuff they're doing over there. And it's interesting. And South Korea, because it is small enough to fit in the space between Los Angeles and San Francisco,

yet is the third largest skincare and cosmetics exporter in the world competing with France and the U.S., that means South Korea's market is very well-developed and mature and competitive. Before that, after the Korean War, when the U.S. was the far richer country and had troops on the Korean peninsula in the South, the desire was really for Koreans to mule, Koreans who were in America, you know, Korean immigrants to the U.S., to mule things like Pond's cold cream, American products, back to Korea. And now it's totally flipped, right? Where those of us in the U.S. are constantly like, get me my Innisfree sunscreen, get me that Laneige lip sleeping mask, the snail mucin sheet masks, all the cool things that we want our friends who who visit Seoul to bring back to us.

For a country as small as it is, there is so much more in terms of innovation and offerings and R&D around skincare and cosmetics than you would expect. So yes, they are trying all sorts of cool new things. And I looked into it because I think that physical beauty is this double-edged sword. It's a paradox because on one hand, it can be a vessel for expression and self-realization. On the other hand, it can be a crutch because we end up investing all of our time and our sense of self and can come at the expense of becoming a full person.

So it is this fascinating paradox to look into. And South Korea just happens to be the epicenter of all of that. Elise Hsu's book is called Flawless, Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital. Our show today was produced by John Ahrens, edited by Miranda Kennedy, engineered by David Herman, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. And thanks to Isla May Terrell. The rest of the team includes Halima Shah, Abhishek Artsy, Hadi Mawagdi, Amanda Llewellyn, Miles Bryan, Victoria Chamberlain, Our supervising producer is Amina El-Sadi.

Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy. I'm Sam Sanders. And I host another podcast that I think you might want to check out. It is called Into It. It comes from Vulture and New York Magazine. It is a twice-a-week pop culture smorgasbord all about the pop culture we can't stop thinking about. We have a new episode in the feed right now

where I interview author Brandon Taylor about his latest novel, The Late Americans. And then we talk about why BookTok and Bookstagram and the online discourse around books is kind of broken right now. It's a good chat. If you like to read, I think you'll like it. Into it.

Go check it out right now. Okay, this podcast is called Today Explained. Thank you.