The bank holds no sunscreen product photography, a gap the honesty section admits. The frame is a face in direct sun, the same frame the skincare Decoder runs under: this Card is that page's ranking sibling, and the light, not a tube, is the subject.
Checked and updated October 2026
The short version. One basis, published in full below: the Drug Facts panel the maker prints, because every product on this page is an over-the-counter drug and its panel is the only evidence there is. La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk SPF 60 wins at 89, four filters adding to 25 percent and no fragrance. The findings are in the columns. The filter column: all 8 panels print percentages, because the law compels it, and the loads behind the front numbers still run from one filter to four, 16.5 percent to 28 percent. The cast column: of the three mineral-bearing records, exactly one prints a cast claim. The fragrance column: a Fragrance entry appears in 2 of 8 inactive lists, in a product category the skincare Decoder orders worn every morning. The SPF 20 moisturizer is sent home at 45.
First, the decision
This Card answers to a ruling that already exists. The skincare Decoder prints this desk's doctrine in full: SPF 30 or higher, every day, two finger-lengths for face and neck, worn as the last morning step, because the ageing dose is not the holiday but the commute, the window seat and the lunch walk. A sunscreen ranking that disagreed with its own Decoder would be worthless, so the floor is applied here exactly as printed there: a product under SPF 30 is not a daily sunscreen on this desk, whatever else it is. What this Card grades is the published record only, the Drug Facts panel, the inactive list, the maker's claims graded as claims, and the price per ounce. It asserts nothing about what any formula does on any skin; every product here is a drug, and the desk grades paper, not outcomes.
Two separations run through the whole page, because this class is two distinctions wearing one shelf. Filter species: chemical filters are organic compounds absorbed into the skin, and their record is spread across three or four percentages; mineral filters, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, sit on the skin, and their record is one or two numbers large enough to read at arm's length; a hybrid prints both kinds on one panel. They are different instruments, graded on the completeness and honesty of their own kind of record, never converted into each other. Purchase species: face and body are different purchases with different economies, a face ounce at $26.47 and a body ounce at $2.06 both normal inside their own species, so value is graded inside each species' own per-ounce economy, never across. Four of the ranked seven are chemical, two mineral, one hybrid; three are face records, three are sold for face and body in one bottle, and one is a body lotion that stays in the body species where its maker keeps it.
Most faces, most mornings: La Roche-Posay Melt-In Milk (89), the complete panel at a mid-pack ounce. The mineral answer: Blue Lizard Sensitive (84) for face and body, Vanicream (80) for the face alone and the ceramide record behind it. The prestige face: EltaMD UV Clear (83), bought knowing its maker prints it as not water resistant. The drugstore drug: Neutrogena Ultra Sheer (81), the field's largest filter load at $3.46 an ounce, fragrance included in that price and charged for it. The finish buyer: Supergoop Unseen (73), a gel whose premium buys a finish this page does not grade. The body, by the big bottle: Sun Bum Original (73), the cheapest ounce here, scented on purpose. Sent home: the SPF moisturizer at 20, under the floor; see the verdict box.
The filter column: the number on the front is the weakest fact on the bottle
Every sunscreen in this field is a US drug, and a drug panel compels the percentages: 8 of 8 records print every filter with its number. That is where the agreement ends. Count the filters and the loads behind the marketing number scatter. Four records print four filters: La Roche-Posay (avobenzone 3, homosalate 10, octisalate 5, octocrylene 7: 25 percent in total), Neutrogena (3, 10, 5 and octocrylene 10: 28 percent, the field's largest load), Supergoop (3, 7, 5, 9: 24 percent) and Sun Bum (3, 5, 3, 10: 21 percent). Three print two: EltaMD's hybrid pair (zinc oxide 9.0, octinoxate 7.5: 16.5 percent), Blue Lizard's mineral pair (zinc oxide 10, titanium dioxide 8: 18 percent), and the skip's pair (avobenzone 2.2, octinoxate 7.5: 9.7 percent). One prints a single number: Vanicream's zinc oxide at 19.5 percent, the largest single filter figure in the field, doing alone what the chemical panels spread across four lines.
So SPF 30, the Decoder's floor, arrives on this page in two entirely different shapes: one mineral percentage (Vanicream, 19.5) and four chemical percentages adding to 21 (Sun Bum). SPF 46 is two filters. SPF 60 is four filters adding to less, in total percentage, than the SPF 55 beside it. None of this makes a bigger load a better sunscreen, and the desk claims no such thing: the load is a record fact, not an efficacy verdict. What it makes is a reader's rule. The front number is a test result under a protocol; the panel is the formula. Two bottles can carry near-identical fronts and unrelated backs, and the only way to know which instrument you are holding is the column the law makes them print.
The cast column: who prints a claim, and who prints nothing
White cast is the question every mineral buyer asks, so the desk counted what the makers themselves print about it. There are three mineral-bearing records in the field. One prints a cast claim: Vanicream's own page states the lotion absorbs quickly without leaving a white residue, a claim graded here as a claim, present and therefore answerable. One routes around it: EltaMD's UV Clear record is a hybrid whose untinted panel carries no iron oxides and prints no cast position; the tint lives in a separate tinted sibling product, sold as its own record, and the desk graded the untinted one. One prints nothing at all: Blue Lizard's maker page for the Sensitive lotion makes no cast claim in either direction, on the record where the question is loudest, and wearer reports on retailer pages split both ways, which the desk records as reports and grades as nothing. The irony the column turns up: the loudest invisibility claim in the field belongs to a chemical gel, Supergoop's "100 percent invisible, weightless, scentless," printed in absolutes. Of 8 records, cast claims appear on 2, and one of the two is not a mineral product.
The fragrance column: scent in a product ordered worn every morning
The Decoder's sensitive rule, quoted on the cleanser and moisturizer Cards and repeated here because the logic compounds: fragrance-free everything, one new product at a time. A sunscreen is worn more often, over more skin, and reapplied more publicly than anything else in the routine, so the desk counted the scent systems. A Fragrance entry appears in 2 of 8 inactive lists: Neutrogena Ultra Sheer, whose current label carries Fragrance and whose retailer copy concedes a mild scent, and Sun Bum Original, where scent is not an accident of formulation but the brand's pitch, printed by the maker itself: people say it smells like summer. A third record arrives scented by another route: the skip carries lavender, rosemary and geranium oils in its printed list while retail copy for the same tube calls it fragrance-free. The other five records print fragrance-free or carry no fragrance entry at all. In a category whose entire doctrine is daily wear, 3 of 8 records are scented by one route or another, and the two honest ways to do it, printing the word Fragrance or printing nothing, are both on this page.
How the scores work
The basis is the grooming run's, unchanged in shape, because the class grades the same way: a published record, a claim set, a price per ounce, and a species. Active record, as published (30): the filter panel exactly as printed, percentages, filter count, total load, and where the SPF lands against the Decoder's floor of 30; loads are graded as record completeness, never as protection verdicts. Formulation honesty (20): panels that agree between the maker's own record and the federal drug label, absences itemised, divergences between a maker's record and a retailer's rendering printed rather than smoothed over, and retired panels still circulating charged to the name that lets them circulate. Claim discipline (20): water-resistance minutes as printed, cast claims present, bounded or absent, absolutes charged, and no claim credited beyond what the panel underneath it supports. Value per ounce (15): door prices and the arithmetic in the open, graded inside each purchase species' own economy. Format and species clarity (15): the product is honestly the species it claims to be, chemical, mineral or hybrid, face or body, with its crossovers stated on the pack rather than discovered on the back. One tie stands in the table, at 73, and it is broken the way this desk always breaks one: on the primary row, the active record, 23 to 20, with the ruling printed rather than buried. The full method is on the methodology page; the routine this page serves is the skincare Decoder, and the step before this one is ranked in the moisturizer Card.
Seven ranked, and the one sent home
La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk SPF 60
The winner is a pharmacy panel with nothing to hide behind. Four chemical filters, each printed: avobenzone at the 3 percent figure every full-strength chemical panel on this page prints, homosalate 10, octisalate 5, octocrylene 7, a 25 percent load behind the SPF 60 on the front. Water resistance is printed at 80 minutes, inactive list carries no fragrance entry, and the bottle is sold honestly for face and body in one species. Ulta lists the same milk in two sizes at $28.99 to $38.99, a spread printed in the value table; the record, not any single door's price, is what wins this Card.
$28.49 for 5 fl oz at Target ($5.70 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $28.49 at Target| Active record, as published | 27 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 18 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 18 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 12 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 14 / 15 |
Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50
The mineral record a reader can hold in one hand: zinc oxide 10 percent and titanium dioxide 8 percent, 18 percent of mineral filter printed where the buyer can see it, water resistant for 80 minutes, and the absences itemised by the maker, no fragrance, no parabens, no phthalates. The maker's record and the federal drug label agree. What the maker does not print is any position on white cast, the one question a mineral lotion is always asked, and the claims row charges for the silence rather than filling it with wearer reports. At $3.10 an ounce it is nearly the cheapest record on the page and finishes second: the arithmetic is a bonus, not the argument.
$15.49 for 5 fl oz at Target ($3.10 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $15.49 at Target| Active record, as published | 24 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 18 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 15 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 14 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
EltaMD UV Clear Broad-Spectrum SPF 46
The prestige face record, and the most honest small print in the field: the maker's own comparison table prints this product as not water resistant, a disclosure against its own interest that the honesty row pays for in full. The panel is a hybrid, zinc oxide 9.0 percent with octinoxate 7.5 percent, fragrance-free, and the niacinamide is printed at 5 percent, a percentage almost no cosmetic volunteers. One retailer's listing contradicts the maker and calls the product water-resistant; the desk grades the maker's record and prints the divergence in the honesty section. The conviction is arithmetic: $26.47 an ounce is the steepest ounce on this page, and the value row says so.
$45.00 for 1.7 oz at the Mayo Clinic Store ($26.47 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $45.00 at Mayo Clinic Store| Active record, as published | 25 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 19 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 17 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 8 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 14 / 15 |
Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 55
The largest filter load in the field by arithmetic, four filters adding to 28 percent with octocrylene at 10, water resistant 80 minutes, at $3.46 an ounce, the per-ounce figure Target prints itself. Two charges hold it at fourth. The current label, the one graded, carries Fragrance in its inactive list, in a product the Decoder orders worn every morning. And the name is a palimpsest: an older panel carrying oxybenzone 6 percent still circulates in retailer copy under the same name, so the record a buyer meets depends on which page he lands on. The panel on the drugstore shelf today is complete and cheap; the record around the name is split, and the honesty row grades the name.
$10.39 for 3 fl oz at Target ($3.46 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $10.39 at Target| Active record, as published | 26 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 13 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 16 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 13 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Vanicream Facial Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SPF 30
One number does all the work: zinc oxide 19.5 percent, the largest single filter percentage in the field, printed by the maker and confirmed on the federal label, with five ceramides in the inactive list behind it, the moisturizer Card's house doing its barrier record inside a sunscreen. The maker prints a cast claim, that it absorbs without leaving a white residue, graded here as a claim, and the brand answers the water question plainly in public: not water resistant. SPF 30 sits exactly on the Decoder's floor, which caps the active row, and the price drifts by door, $13.99 at Target against $19.99 at Ulta for the same tube, printed in the value table rather than averaged away.
$13.99 for 2.5 oz at Target ($5.60 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $13.99 at Target| Active record, as published | 22 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 19 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 15 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 12 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 12 / 15 |
Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 50
A primer wearing a drug panel. Four chemical filters adding to 24 percent, no fragrance anywhere in the list, and the boldest claim in the field printed in the maker's own copy: 100 percent invisible, weightless, scentless. Absolutes are graded as absolutes, and the same record prints the field's shortest water resistance, 40 minutes, half the figure four other records on this page carry. The current SPF 50 panel is what is graded; the retired SPF 40 formula printed different numbers, and the desk notes it because buyers will meet both. At $22.35 an ounce the premium buys a finish, and finishes are not graded here. Level with No. 7 at 73; the tie breaks on the active row, 23 to 20.
$38.00 for 1.7 fl oz at Ulta ($22.35 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $38.00 at Ulta| Active record, as published | 23 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 16 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 14 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 7 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 13 / 15 |
Sun Bum Original SPF 30 Sunscreen Lotion
The body species, graded as the body species. Four filters adding to 21 percent, with the thinnest mid-panel numbers in the field, homosalate 5 and octisalate 3, water resistant 80 minutes, and the cheapest ounce on the page at $2.06. The charge is printed in its own inactive list: Fragrance, in a brand whose pitch is the scent itself. The Decoder's doctrine is a sunscreen worn every morning, and a scented body lotion is a beach instrument rather than a morning one; the maker's own public answers steer sensitive faces toward its mineral line, which is this desk's point made by the maker. Do not confuse the bottle with the spray under the same name: the spray prints a different panel, and the desk grades the lotion.
$16.49 for 8 fl oz at Target ($2.06 an ounce) (October 2026)
Buy · $16.49 at Target| Active record, as published | 20 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 15 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 13 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 14 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 11 / 15 |
Jack Black Double-Duty Face Moisturizer SPF 20
Sent home on its own panel. The SPF on the front is 20, and the skincare Decoder's floor, printed before this Card was built, is 30 or higher, every day. Behind the number: avobenzone 2.2 percent, where every full-strength chemical panel on this page prints 3, with octinoxate 7.5 percent, two filters adding to 9.7 percent. The printed list scents itself with lavender, rosemary and geranium oils while retail copy for the same tube calls it fragrance-free. This desk graded the same product 71 of 100 as a moisturizer in Verdict Card No. 66, where the SPF was a passenger; on a sunscreen basis, where the SPF is the product, the record scores 45. Both numbers stand, and the difference is the basis, stated in the open.
$32.00 for 3.3 oz at Ulta ($9.70 an ounce) (October 2026): prestige money for a number under the floor.
| Active record, as published | 11 / 30 |
| Formulation honesty | 12 / 20 |
| Claim discipline | 9 / 20 |
| Value per ounce | 5 / 15 |
| Format & species clarity | 8 / 15 |
The numbers, side by side
| Sunscreen | Score | Filter species | Water resistance, as printed | Price | Per ounce | Fragrance on the list? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk SPF 60 | 89 | Chemical, 4 filters, 25% total | 80 minutes | $28.49 / 5 oz | $5.70 | No |
| Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral SPF 50 | 84 | Mineral, 2 filters, 18% total | 80 minutes | $15.49 / 5 oz | $3.10 | No |
| EltaMD UV Clear SPF 46 | 83 | Hybrid, 2 filters, 16.5% total | Not water resistant | $45.00 / 1.7 oz | $26.47 | No |
| Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 55 | 81 | Chemical, 4 filters, 28% total | 80 minutes | $10.39 / 3 oz | $3.46 | Yes, in the inactives |
| Vanicream Facial Moisturizer SPF 30 | 80 | Mineral, 1 filter, 19.5% | Not water resistant | $13.99 / 2.5 oz | $5.60 | No |
| Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 50 | 73 | Chemical, 4 filters, 24% total | 40 minutes | $38.00 / 1.7 oz | $22.35 | No |
| Sun Bum Original SPF 30 Lotion | 73 | Chemical, 4 filters, 21% total | 80 minutes | $16.49 / 8 oz | $2.06 | Yes, in the inactives |
| Jack Black Double-Duty SPF 20 | 45 | Chemical, 2 filters, 9.7% total | No claim printed | $32.00 / 3.3 oz | $9.70 | No entry; scent is the botanical oils |
Read the table the way the desk built it: the SPF numbers run 20 to 60 while the filter loads behind them run 9.7 percent to 28 percent, and the two columns do not move together. Four records print 80 minutes of water resistance, one prints 40, two print none because they claim none, and the skip prints no claim at all.
Value per ounce, in the open
| Sunscreen | Price and size | Per ounce | The arithmetic, honestly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun Bum Original SPF 30 Lotion | $16.49 / 8 fl oz | $2.06 | The cheapest ounce on the page, in the body species, where ounces are cheap. Target lists the lotion from $5.29 for the 3 oz size; the maker's own store shows $18.99 for the bottle graded. |
| Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral SPF 50 | $15.49 / 5 fl oz | $3.10 | The cheapest face-and-body ounce, and the mineral benchmark's: value is a bonus on a record that finishes second without it. |
| Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 55 | $10.39 / 3 fl oz | $3.46 | Target prints the per-ounce itself. The cheapest full chemical panel; fragrance and a split record are in that price. |
| Vanicream Facial Moisturizer SPF 30 | $13.99 / 2.5 oz | $5.60 | The Target door. The same tube is $19.99 at Ulta, $15.99 at the Allergy Store and $16.00 at LovelySkin: a $6 spread on one tube, printed, not averaged. |
| La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk SPF 60 | $28.49 / 5 fl oz | $5.70 | The winner's ounce, mid-pack in its species. Ulta lists two sizes at $28.99 to $38.99; buy the 5 oz size at Target's price. |
| Jack Black Double-Duty SPF 20 | $32.00 / 3.3 oz | $9.70 | The skip's ounce: prestige money inside the face species, for the thinnest panel on the page. The 8.5 oz size at Macy's is $50. |
| Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 50 | $38.00 / 1.7 fl oz | $22.35 | Gel money. The same $38 at the maker's own store and at Ulta; what the premium buys is a finish, not a longer panel. |
| EltaMD UV Clear SPF 46 | $45.00 / 1.7 oz | $26.47 | The steepest ounce on the page, roughly thirteen body ounces of Sun Bum. The face species tolerates it; the value row does not pretend otherwise. |
Which one to buy
Most faces, most mornings: La Roche-Posay Melt-In Milk SPF 60 (89). The complete panel, 80 printed minutes, no fragrance, and an ounce in the middle of its species. The mineral route: Blue Lizard Sensitive (84) if one bottle covers face and body; Vanicream (80) if it is the face alone and the skin is reactive, one new product at a time per the Decoder's rule. The prestige face, knowingly: EltaMD UV Clear (83), bought at the Mayo Clinic Store's $45 with its maker's own not-water-resistant disclosure read first. The drugstore shelf: Neutrogena Ultra Sheer (81), the largest panel per dollar on the page, with the Fragrance line read before the price is celebrated. The finish buyer: Supergoop Unseen (73) is a primer with a drug panel attached; buy it for the finish with the arithmetic in front of you, or not at all. The body, by the big bottle: Sun Bum Original (73), the beach instrument, worn as one. Sent home: Jack Black Double-Duty (45) as a sunscreen; its 71 on the moisturizer Card stands for the other job. Wash with the cleanser Card's winner, moisturise from its sibling Card, and run the whole morning by the Decoder.
How we know: the honesty section
Every product here is a drug. All eight records are over-the-counter drugs in the United States. Their strengths, water-resistance figures, directions and warnings quoted here come from their published Drug Facts panels and makers' records, and any protection language attached to them is the makers' regulated claim architecture, graded as a claim. The only skin-cancer wording on this page is the regulators' printed Use line, which Sun Bum's panel states in the standard form: helps prevent sunburn, and, if used as directed with other sun protection measures, decreases the risk of skin cancer and early skin aging caused by the sun. The desk quotes that line as a record, endorses none of it, and extends none of it; this page asserts nothing about what any product does on any skin, and nothing here is medical advice.
The two Neutrogena panels. The Ultra Sheer record graded is the current federal drug label (Kenvue, updated November 2025): avobenzone 3, homosalate 10, octisalate 5, octocrylene 10, water resistant 80 minutes, Fragrance in the inactives. An older panel, carrying oxybenzone 6 percent and octocrylene 2.8 percent, still circulates in retailer copy under the same product name. The desk graded the current label and charged the name, not the buyer, for the split: a reader who lands on the wrong listing meets a different formula than the one on the shelf.
The EltaMD divergence. EltaMD's own comparison table prints UV Clear as not water resistant. The Mayo Clinic Store's listing for the same product includes water-resistant in its benefits copy. Both cannot be right, the maker's record governs, and the card is graded on it. The desk's door for this product is that same store, because its price and stock were verified there on the day of checking; the error sits in the listing's benefits list, and it is printed here rather than silently routed around.
Price drift, printed instead of averaged. Vanicream's tube was found at $13.99 (Target), $15.99 (the Allergy Store), $16.00 (LovelySkin) and $19.99 (Ulta) on the same day. La Roche-Posay's milk lists at Ulta in two sizes, $28.99 to $38.99, against Target's $28.49 for the 5 oz bottle graded. Sun Bum's lotion runs $5.29 to $16.49 across Target's sizes and $18.99 at the maker's own store. Per-ounce figures on the cards use the door named on the card, and the spreads are printed in the value table where they belong.
The retired Supergoop panel. Unseen Sunscreen existed as an SPF 40 product with a different panel before the current SPF 50 record; both circulate. The figures graded are the current SPF 50 record, avobenzone 3, homosalate 7, octisalate 5, octocrylene 9, on which the records checked agree. A buyer holding the older tube is holding a different record than the one scored here.
The skip's two scores. Jack Black Double-Duty appears twice in this desk's work: 71 of 100 in Verdict Card No. 66, graded as a moisturizer on a basis where its SPF was never asked to carry the grade, and 45 here, graded as a sunscreen on a basis where the SPF is the whole product. Both scores stand, both bases are printed in full, and the difference between them is the difference between the two questions. This desk has done the same in the open before, one garment scored in two Cards with the cross-reference printed on both.
Doors. Seven of seven buy doors were verified live on the merchant's own domain on the day of checking, and for once all seven are exact product pages: Target for La Roche-Posay, Blue Lizard, Neutrogena, Vanicream and Sun Bum, the Mayo Clinic Store for EltaMD, Ulta for Supergoop. No search-page doors and no homepage doors were needed. The skip ships no door, by this desk's standing pattern.
The photo gap, admitted again. The image bank holds no sunscreen product photography and no shelf or beach-bag frames of these products; a fresh sweep on the day of building confirmed it. The cards therefore run text-first, the rows carrying the evidence, and the hero is the skincare Decoder's sunlit portrait frame, reused deliberately because this Card is that page's ranking sibling, and captioned for what it is: a face in sunlight, not a product record. When licensed brand creative reaches the desk, this page gets its product frames; until then the gap is printed rather than papered over with a stock tube.
Questions the desk hears
What is the best sunscreen for men?
On the published Drug Facts records, La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk SPF 60 at 89 of 100: four chemical filters printed and adding to 25 percent, water resistance printed at 80 minutes, no fragrance entry, $5.70 an ounce. Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral SPF 50 is second at 84 and is the mineral answer, zinc oxide 10 percent and titanium dioxide 8 percent at $3.10 an ounce. EltaMD UV Clear SPF 46 is third at 83, the prestige face record, a hybrid whose maker prints its own weakness, that it is not water resistant.
What is the difference between chemical, mineral and hybrid sunscreen?
Species, and the panels keep them apart. A chemical sunscreen's record is spread across organic filters, four percentages on most of this page, each doing part of the work. A mineral sunscreen's record is one or two numbers, zinc oxide and sometimes titanium dioxide, sitting on the skin rather than absorbing into it. A hybrid prints both kinds on one panel: EltaMD UV Clear pairs zinc oxide 9.0 percent with octinoxate 7.5 percent. Neither species is graded against the other here; each is graded on whether its own record is complete, honest and priced inside its own economy.
Why does the same SPF number hide such different filter records?
Because SPF is the marketing number and the panel is the record. All 8 products checked print their filter percentages, because a US drug panel compels it, but the loads behind the front numbers run from one filter to four and from 16.5 percent of total filters to 28 percent. SPF 30 alone arrives on this page as zinc oxide 19.5 percent by itself (Vanicream) and as four chemical filters adding to 21 percent (Sun Bum). The skip prints SPF 20, below the skincare Decoder's floor of 30, on two filters adding to 9.7 percent. Read the panel, not the front.
Which sunscreen should sensitive skin buy?
The fragrance-free end of the table, following the skincare Decoder's rule: fragrance-free everything, one new product at a time. Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral SPF 50 (84) prints no fragrance and an absence list that runs to parabens and phthalates. Vanicream Facial Moisturizer SPF 30 (80) is a mineral face record with five ceramides and no fragrance entry. The two records that carry Fragrance by name in the inactive list are Neutrogena Ultra Sheer (81) and Sun Bum Original (73), and the skip scents itself with botanical oils while retail copy calls it fragrance-free.
Is an SPF moisturizer enough for every day?
Only if it clears the floor, and the one graded here does not. The skincare Decoder's ruling is SPF 30 or higher, every morning, and Jack Black Double-Duty prints SPF 20 on avobenzone 2.2 percent and octinoxate 7.5 percent, at $9.70 an ounce. This desk scored the same tube 71 of 100 as a moisturizer in Verdict Card No. 66, where the SPF was a passenger; on a sunscreen basis it scores 45, because here the SPF is the product. An SPF moisturizer that prints 30 or higher is a different record and would be graded as one.
Does sunscreen really need to be worn every day, even indoors?
That is the skincare Decoder's doctrine, and this Card is built under it: the ageing dose is not the holiday, it is the commute, the window seat and the lunch walk, and ultraviolet works through cloud and window glass on ordinary days. The Decoder's measure is two finger-lengths for face and neck, every morning, as the last step. This page grades which printed record deserves that daily slot; it makes no medical claims of its own, and the protection language quoted anywhere here is the makers' regulated Drug Facts language, graded as a claim.
Verdict Card No. 68. The grooming run continues: the cleanser Card (No. 67), the moisturizer Card (No. 66), the deodorant Card (No. 65), the skincare Decoder this page answers to, the Grooming Take on the claims behind the shelf, and scent in the fragrance Card.
Checked and updated October 2026