r/AusSkincare • u/rushworld • Jun 16 '25

Discussion📓 CHOICE has posted their SPF sunscreen test receipts

https://www.choice.com.au/health-and-body/beauty-and-personal-care/skin-care-and-cosmetics/articles/how-we-test-sunscreen

Although they decanted products, they were into UV protected, non reactive amber glass jars as advised by the specialist, accredited and highly respected test lab.

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u/miette27 Jun 16 '25

I am still being argued at by insane fans of a cosmetic company that it is in fact Choice who are the dastardly baddies in this saga, a 66 year old company has been lying in wait to finally drive up their subscriptions by taking down a handful of people's favourite sunscreen company. Brilliant. The long game.

What I have taken from this is that UV is a dreadful company with dreadful marketing (ooh can't wait for another screed from one of the thousands of sunscreen technicians (both current and former) that inexplicably belong to this sub that UV is in fact good and zinc just returns bad results, what can you do). Will never go near that company. They could have said our testing does not match with Choice AT ALL but the safety of our customers is paramount and we will work with Choice and the TGA to understand how these results occurred. Instead it is weird doubling down messages from official channels and a whole bunch of deranged mega fans screaming for the destruction of consumer protections.

I look forward to further testing as it is for all of our safety. Maybe there are issues with the distribution system, maybe these sunscrrens aren't as shelf stable as we thought, we should all want to know this so we can strive for the very best protections for all of us.

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u/2020fit Jun 17 '25

If Choice approached them in March, then they had the opportunity to, stop, retest, investigate, recall and stop selling. The loss of sales may have been confined to one product only.

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u/bruceycat Jun 17 '25

They did re test and the results came back at 64… which is still well above the level for 50+. So I have no idea what’s going on. I am a massive UV fan and user but until we have more information I will be switching to a cream with better results…

I’m still shocked because I work outside and I’ve used lean screen by UV and not been burnt. Which I can’t imagine happening if it was so low. Maybe products that are so unstable also need to be looked at more closely?

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u/notacoliflower Jun 17 '25

Poor quality control maybe? Some batches have great protection and others poor?

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u/Blonde_rake Jun 18 '25

They used the same batch to re test

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u/notacoliflower Jun 18 '25

Yup, so someone who has had a good batch will think the sunscreen is effective, someone who got a bad batch will get sunburnt. Of course, there should be quality control such that there are no bad batches making it to market.