Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes that everyone deserves better sunscreen. In a recent video on Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez partnered with Dieux Skincare founder and licensed esthetician Charlotte Palermino to discuss why the United States is lagging behind in terms of sunscreen protection — and what can be done to improve it. “US sunscreens are significantly behind the rest of the world,” stated Ocasio-Cortez. “I visited South Korea earlier this year and it’s evident how much more advanced the rest of the world is in terms of sunscreen, and we deserve better in the US.”
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the sunscreen you just purchased from Target is unsafe; it is more about the differences in how sunscreen is regulated in the US compared to other countries. In the United States, specifically by the FDA, sunscreen is classified as a drug, not a cosmetic product. This has its advantages since it requires more testing and clinical studies. However, it also introduces numerous regulations to the process, which can be time-consuming and expensive. “Sometimes, this bureaucratic and costly process hinders us from obtaining any sunscreen filters at all,” explained Ocasio-Cortez.
As both Ocasio-Cortez and Palermino pointed out, the US sunscreen filter has not been updated since 1999. Just think about how much the beauty industry has evolved since then! Ocasio-Cortez also referenced a study from 2017 that revealed only half of the sunscreens in the US meet European protection standards.
This is a topic that Allure has been discussing extensively for a long time. Did you notice our appearance in the video? At one point, a headline from a 2017 article by Sable Yong about Korean sunscreen technology appears. “It’s not that South Korea possesses something specifically unique that enables them to create superior sunscreens,” explained cosmetic chemist Stephen Ko at the time. “They simply have access to a wider range of sunscreen ingredients to work with.”
Due to stricter regulations in the US, it can be challenging to get new ingredients approved. As Ko clarified in Yong’s article, “Sunscreen chemicals, on the other hand, are required to undergo the formal drug approval process, and as a result, no new sunscreen ingredient has been approved for use in the US since 1999.”