Greener Solutions 2018: Safer Sunscreens

The Safer Sunscreens group identified naturally-sourced compounds such as colorless carotenoids, mycosporine-like amino acids, and vitamin E compounds, for use as potential alternatives to existing sunscreen compounds. These substances may serve as viable alternatives to the benzophenone compounds recently banned in the State of  Hawaii. The team based its research on plant and microbial approaches to UV protection. The group  also considered the properties of compounds that have been accepted for use in Europe, but not in the United States, with an aim to identify the physico-chemical properties that confer the desired performance traits.