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Summer Safety Week: Avoiding chemicals in your sunscreen

Posted at 7:34 AM, May 22, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-22 08:08:58-04

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- The un-official start of summer is just days away which means a lot of us will be out enjoying the sun.

But for many of us parents, the sunscreen aisle is overwhelming with many different sunscreen to choose from, but how many are made without chemicals?

We sat down with Katie Kimball, a mother who has done hours of research, interviewed many experts, and tested more than 100 sunscreens to find the best fit for her family.

She says out of the hundreds of options, there are a total of ten she has given a high rating.

Kimball says she only trusts sunscreen made with two active ingredients: zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which are both found naturally in our environment and proven not to react inside our skin unlike conventional sunscreen ingredients.

Just Tuesday, the Environmental Working Group said,  "67 percent of the products don’t work well or contain ingredients  that could harm health."

“The majority of sunscreens available in the U.S. aren’t as good as most consumers think they are,” said Sonya Lunder, a senior research analyst at EWG.

EWG also said "most sunscreens on the market contain hormone-disrupting ingredients, like oxybenzone, which Hawaii lawmakers recently moved to ban due to its role in coral bleaching and coral death. Hawaii Gov. David Yutaka Ige has yet to sign the bill into law."

For more information on Katie's Top Ten Picks, click here.