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Some of Australia’s most popular sunscreens have been exposed for failing to provide the advertised protection – and this in turn has revealed shortcomings in lab testing. By Jackson Ryan.

Can we trust our sunscreens?

Tennis fans apply sunscreen at the Australian Open.

Credit: AP Photo / Andy Wong

“Wear sunscreen.”

That’s the recommendation in the first line of Baz Luhrmann’s 1997 chart-topping song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”, which takes its lyrics from a column in the Chicago Tribune in the same year. It’s the song’s most pertinent advice.

Sunscreen is one of the great public health triumphs of the 20th century. The highest quality scientific evidence shows its use can reduce the incidence of all three types of skin cancer – basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas and melanoma. Given skin cancer is the most common cancer in Australia, affecting two in three people over their lifetime, sunscreen is life-saving.

Last month, a report from consumer advocacy group CHOICE revealed 16 of the 20 widely sold sunscreens in Australia that they tested fell short of the sun protection factor (SPF) printed on their label. Those included popular brands Coles, Woolworths, the Cancer Council, Nivea, Sun Bum and Neutrogena.

CHOICE’s results and the subsequent widespread, sometimes misleading, media attention drove heated debate. Social media lit up with discussions about which sunscreens offered the best protection, the subreddit for Australian skincare became a forum for airing concerns, while health and beauty influencers on Instagram weighed in with their own takes – some clever, others ill-informed.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration, which regulates testing and marketing claims of sunscreens in Australia, says it’s now investigating CHOICE’s findings and will take regulatory action as required.

While the underlying public health message has not changed – wear sunscreen – the testing saga exposes critical gaps between the science, a booming cosmetics industry and the people who rely on, and trust, sunscreen products.

When you’re in the sun, you’re constantly exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Over time, it causes an inflammatory response resulting in reddened, warm skin. Sunscreens block UV, either by physically shielding and reflecting it or by absorbing it and turning it to heat. The amount of protection a sunscreen provides is denoted by its SPF, with higher values preventing more UV from penetrating skin.

The testing regimen to determine SPF is outlined at length in an international standard, the ISO 24444. It forms the basis of the TGA’s Australian/New Zealand Standard (AS/NZS) 2604:2021, the framework governing sunscreen testing and labelling requirements.

The current best approach for evaluating SPF claims – used for almost 50 years – is an in-vivo test, which uses human volunteers. “Performed according to its 59 pages, it’s still the gold standard,” says John Staton, one of Australia’s top sunscreen experts and former head of Sydney testing laboratory Eurofins Dermatest.

The test compares patches of skin on the back of an adult of very light to intermediate-coloured skin exposed to artificial UV light. A technician evaluates how much UV it takes for skin to turn red. The same test is performed on a patch of skin with sunscreen applied. Simply put, the SPF rating comes from determining the difference between the two measurements.

The in-vivo test has been controversial, however. For one, it’s extremely variable. This is partly because determining when skin has turned red can be highly subjective. There are also worries about the use of a synthetic UV source, rather than sunlight, and different skin types used in the test. These differences are reflected in the large discrepancies between SPF values across labs.

A 2016 paper showed that determining SPF from such tests in a single lab was not enough to provide accurate values. It suggested “at least three (ideally four) different in-vivo SPF values from different testing laboratories should be required to ensure a final SPF claim with sufficient confidence”. Just this month, a comprehensive analysis of in-vivo testing by experts in the United States and Germany showed that even across laboratories reviewed and audited to the highest international standard, there was still extreme variability in SPF values.

Testing in this manner also presents ethical issues, as it requires the volunteers, paid about $30 an hour, to be sunburnt. Other SPF testing methods have been developed – including in-vitro methods that don’t use volunteers, and in-silico methods, which are run on computers – but they’re yet to be validated for use. The reluctance to validate new methods is due in part to industry politics.

Christian Surber, formerly a professor of dermatopharmacology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, says the in-silico method produces reliable results, cheaply, “but nobody is really interested in it because the companies that are doing the SPF measurements would lose their job”, he says.

The high variability in SPF testing has been central to the confusion surrounding CHOICE’s report. Stirring it up further is the punchy response from one brand in particular, Melbourne’s Ultra Violette.

Ultra Violette Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Skinscreen is the most expensive sunscreen in CHOICE’s report and was expected to return an SPF of at least 60. CHOICE’s initial testing, in Sydney, revealed an off-the-shelf product tested at an SPF of just 4. When CHOICE retested it in a German laboratory, the SPF was 5.

In response to the CHOICE results, Ultra Violette released a statement (and, later, an Instagram video from co-founder Ava Chandler-Matthews) saying the consumer advocacy group’s results were not “even remotely accurate” and provided access to a 2021 test of Lean Screen, which returned an SPF value of 64.3, and a 2025 retest the company had performed in response to CHOICE, which returned a 61.7.

Ultra Violette took exception to two elements of the CHOICE testing. First, it raised concerns the product had been inappropriately decanted or labelled incorrectly. Second, it noted that the test CHOICE conducted did not align with the TGA’s standard. A CHOICE spokesperson responded that the consumer advocacy group ran “validation” tests and that decanting was performed to strict testing standards.

Ultra Violette’s statement also claimed a particular chemical in its formulation, “when applied sufficiently, would render a testing result of SPF 4 scientifically impossible”. Multiple experts told The Saturday Paper they disagree.

Follow-up reporting by the ABC this month revealed Ultra Violette, along with seven other brands in the CHOICE report, had used the Princeton Consumer Research (PCR) lab in the United Kingdom. The ABC article cited experts who doubted the scientific rigour in PCR’s testing.

Concerns about PCR aren’t new. Two years ago, a report by Truth in Advertising suggested the lab “works with companies to arrive at desired results”.

Asked why Ultra Violette had used PCR multiple times, David Imber, a public relations adviser working for the sunscreen company, told The Saturday Paper, “Ultra Violette was not aware … of the March 2023 Truth in Advertising Report into PCR until it was put to us by you on 16 June.

“We’ve had multiple failures during the development phase of various SPF formulations (expected at the earlier stages of formulating) and given this, we’ve never had reason to doubt the accuracy of the lab’s results,” Imber said.

He noted that prior to receiving media inquiries, Ultra Violette had engaged another lab to retest the SPF of Lean Screen. However, he did not provide The Saturday Paper with the name or credentials of the laboratory.

Five former employees of PCR contacted by The Saturday Paper suggested they had witnessed or been told of instances where results may have been obtained unethically. Reviews on job site Glassdoor paint a similarly unflattering picture of scientific rigour at the laboratory.

PCR did not respond to requests for comment, including those relating to specific claims over unethical practices. The Saturday Paper is not suggesting this has occurred with Ultra Violette’s sunscreen or any of the testing performed by PCR.

SPF testing is an inexact science. It’s also highly subjective and prone to bias, and industry insiders say it’s an open secret that laboratory testing is easily manipulated. Sébastien Miksa, managing director of WENEOS, a European institute evaluating protection claims of sunscreen, and author of the 2016 paper on SPF testing, says, “I strongly believe that increased oversight and more rigorous controls from authorities are essential to detect and prevent such misconduct.”

The TGA does not do in-vivo testing, but it can conduct its own testing of sunscreen products. It tells The Saturday Paper it will not comment on active investigations.

Baz Luhrmann’s song ends with the line “and trust me on the sunscreen”. We can trust it prevents skin cancer, but the marketing claims on the bottles need verification.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 19, 2025 as "Screen-washed".

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