While we all knew it was coming, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing Catherine King has officially announced that sunscreens sold in Australia will now be allowed to display a sun protection factor of 50+.
These new products will be required to have better broad spectrum protection from UVA - the portion of the sun’s UV radiation that causes melanomas and other skin cancers,” says King.
Consumers will have a greater choice of sun protection products, but while SPF 50+ sunscreens will provide better broad spectrum performance, this does not mean you are completely protected from the harmful effects of the sun. You still have to be sun smart. You will still need to apply SPF50+ sunscreen just as liberally as SPF 30+ and re-apply liberally every two hours.”
The media release reveals that the new Standard has come about as there have been significant developments in sunscreen technology in recent years that allows manufacturers to produce and test sunscreens with higher level SPF ratings.”
The new rating brings Australia in line with labelling in the United States, New Zealand and some European countries.
As the announcement began leaking out earlier this week, brands including , , Ella Baché, La Roche Posay and started to reveal the SPF50+ products they will be launching this summer.
NIVEA SUN has SPF50-plus sunscreens in development to suit the Australian market and we expect these to be introduced shortly,” says NIVEA scientific and regulatory affairs manager Ken Lee.
With an increased choice of sunscreens across the SPFs and with continuing education, we are hoping Australians will embrace SPF50-plus,” he continued. It is also vital for Australians to develop an understanding of matching the highest SPF50-plus sunscreens to the most intense sun exposure durations encountered in their outdoor lifestyles.”
NIVEA also revealed that the new Standard permits only certain SPFs to be claimed or labelled. These changes include:
- Sunscreens with test SPF results between 4-14 can only be labelled 4, 6, 8 or 10.
- Sunscreens with test SPF results between 12-29 can only be labelled 15, 20 or 25.
- Sunscreens with test SPF results between 30-59 can only be labelled as 30, 40 or 50.
- Sunscreens with test SPF results of at least 60 can only be labelled 50+.
- No other labelled SPFs apart from these are permitted for sale in Australia.
