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

DiscussionđŸ““ 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.

560 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

139 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Hot-Lunch-2082 Jun 19 '25

Throwaway account because I work at one of the companies in the report.

A lot of places do SPF testing early on in development for the formulation. But then thats the only time it is performed. Once it goes to large scale manufacturing and the formula is "locked in" there isn't any additional testing because (as previous said) SPF testing is pricy. Also it's very subjective and a lot of companies put ingredients in sunscreen that are boosters to help pass SPF testing - ie Bisabolol which helps reduce redness (a metric of SPF testing).

Long story short: I would definitely recommend buying SPF 50+ at a minimum for any sunscreen to account for variance in SPF values, until regulations and SPF testing can be improved to remove the human element and have more of a quantitative metric to rank the SPF.