Why I Buy What I Buy -- Part I -- Sunscreen

I am a heavy consumer of sunscreen. I buy a tube almost every time I go to the grocery store. If it is on sale, I buy several tubes (or bottles, whatever). I am not picky about the brand, but I prefer baby brands because I use them on the kids, and I like high SPF. I know that supposedly anything over 30 (or 35?) doesn't really make a difference, but I like a nice 50.

So I've been kind of shocked to hear that sunscreen can be bad for you. Geez... is ANYTHING good for you? Sunscreen can do a good job of protecting you from the sun, but apparently some of the chemicals that do that job can be carcinogens. So, while you're trying to protect yourself and your family from cancer, you are exposing them to things that cause... cancer.

So, I looked up sunscreen on the Skin Deep database. This is an awesome resource from the friendly people at the Environmental Working Group. They have rated hundreds of sunscreens, based on how well they protect you from the sun (sun hazard) and their health risk (health hazard). Number 1 and 3 on the list were stick lotions by California Baby. Sounds good, so I priced it. At drugstore.com, the .5 oz stick was 12.99. Not so good. Maybe a lotion? The 2.9 oz lotion was (on sale!) 15.49. I'm sorry, but that's totally out of my range.

I couldn't find #2 Badger sunscreen. I decided to go down the list. #8 Mustela is listed at 13.99 for 1.6 ounces. I saw a huge bottle of Blue Lizard at the pool, so I checked it out. It's #17 on the list (the sensitive version) it's 9.19 for 3 oz. The baby version is #23 and the same price (9.19 for 3 oz. Ouch!) Would it pay to buy a gallon like they have at the pool?

1 gallon sunscreen = 128 oz. = 149.00 (with free shipping) = $1.16/oz.
3 oz. sunscreen at 9.19 (let's leave out shipping) = 3.06/oz.
9 oz. at 17.99 (Coolibar.com) = 2.00/oz

Buying a gallon is a HUGE savings.

But is my sunscreen so bad? I'm currently using Banana Boat Sport SPF 50. According to Skin Deep, it has an overall rating of 3 (moderate hazard). It has a 5 (moderate hazard) rating as a health hazard and a 2 (low) for sun hazard. I think it does a good job with the sun. We have been out in the sun a LOT lately, and have little tan to show for it.

Blue Lizard Baby has an overall rating of 1 (low hazard); 3 (health) and 0 (sun). That's pretty good. I also found a list of 10 reasons why Blue Lizard is the best sunscreen.

Sun protection is very important to me and my family. We have already had a close call with skin cancer that scared the #(%@ out of all of us.

I noticed at the pool today that 5 out of 23 kids (yep, I counted... I was trying to be scientific) were wearing swim shirts with UV protection. This seems to be a pretty new phenomenon, but they seemed comfy. The shirts are light so they don't get all soggy when wet, and they are close-fitting so that the kids can swim. Three dads were wearing similar shirts (no moms...) Maybe instead of shelling out 150 for a gallon of sunscreen we could invest in some shirts and use less lotion.

But a gallon? Is that really necessary? Well, we have 5 people in the family. If an adult should use 1 oz. of sunscreen (per application), I figure a child would use about 1/2 that. So, our family needs 3.5 oz. of sunscreen for every trip to the pool. I could use up a 2.9 oz. of California Baby (at 15.49 a pop) in one trip! That's just not going to happen. A gallon of Blue Lizard would last about 40 trips (maybe less, with touch-ups). It's also just one gigantic bottle instead of many smaller bottles and tubes (and we seem to be whipping through about 2 tubes/week now).

I've been noticing that with a lot of my purchases, there is a trade-off. There is a certain price that I am just not willing (or able) to pay. I'm not sure if I'm ready for a gallon of sunscreen, although it seems to make more and more sense the more I think about it. I'll check into the UV clothes and report back.