Dr. Erum Ilyas
- Jun 14, 2023
- 2 min read

Best Sunscreen Sprays for 2023

Updated: Jun 18, 2023

Sunscreen sprays are clearly favored for ease of application. Finding the best one at the store can be like finding a needle in a haystack simply because a spray with only mineral sunscreen additives is hard to come by. Read more...

Topics

How to choose a sunscreen spray?
Why is it so hard to find one with mineral ingredients?
What should I look out for when shopping for a sunscreen spray?
What are your top picks for sunscreen sprays? What are your top picks for sunscreen sprays?

Video: Techei

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How to choose a sunscreen spray?

Shopping for a sunscreen spray is no different from shopping for any kind of sunscreen. Your focus should be the ingredient label seeking Zinc and/or Titanium as your active ingredients primarily and avoiding the chemical sunscreen additives. This is even more important with sunscreen sprays due to the potential aerosol created with the application. We already know that chemical sunscreen ingredients are absorbed into our bloodstream with the application that the use of an aerosol version of sunscreen can risk inhalation of these ingredients. For this reason, seeking mineral sunscreen ingredients and ensuring that they are not in their nano-form is essential.

Also consider the versions of sprays out there: aerosol, mists, and pump sprays. Each offers their own advantage. Aerosols can be easier to apply to large surface areas quickly and effectively. Mists tend to be favored for facial use to avoid aerosolizing particles that could be inhaled. And, pump sprays are a means to quickly access the product but ultimately the product still has to be rubbed in.

Why is it so hard to find one with mineral ingredients?

It is definitely difficult to find mineral sunscreen sprays for a really practical reason. The particle size is larger for mineral ingredients making them more likely to clog the nozzle of a sunscreen spray.

What should I look out for when shopping for a sunscreen spray?

After reviewing 74 sunscreen sprays available at local drugstores I did come across some misleading claims that can make your search a little more difficult. Out of the 74 sunscreen sprays available, only 8 were mineral-only sunscreen sprays. This is just over 10%. Not many.

More disturbing is that we found two sunscreen sprays with misleading claims for mineral sunscreen additives. Banana Boat Sensitive 50 Mineral Spray and Banana Boat Baby 50 Mineral Spray both had "mineral" in their name but when the ingredient labels were reviewed they both had chemical sunscreen additives. This is frustrating as it demonstrated that just seeking the word "mineral" in the marketing claims was not sufficient to evaluate the sunscreen chosen.