Phthalates are one of the 400 ingredients that Brandless bans from its personal care products. This piqued my interest because I have heard some rumblings about phthalates before. These chemicals are used in lots of products, ranging from plastic toys to shampoos. I decided to dig into the research and see what I could find. According to the FDA, three types of phthalates appear in cosmetic products:

Lately I’ve noticed that some products advertise SPF protection, but only contain one active ingredient: titanium dioxide. Why is that a problem? Because titanium dioxide only protects against part of the UV spectrum—specifically, UVB and UVA2 rays. It does not protect your skin from UVA1 (340–400 nm) rays, according to this table from the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Out of all the products included in the Sephora Sun Safety Kit 2018, the one that perplexed me the most was Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare Alpha Beta Glow Pads. These self-tanning towelettes contain glycolic acid and lactic acid, two alpha-hydroxy acids (AHA), which increase your skin’s sensitivity to UV radiation. That sounds like the opposite of safety to me. I guess maybe Sephora assumes that you’ll use this product in conjunction with one of the other sunscreens included in the kit?…