I've tried so many of the chemical-free sunscreens on the market including California Baby (stick and lotion), Sunny Days (stick), Ocean Potion Naturals, UV Natural Baby, Neutrogena Sensitive Skin mineral sunblock, Alba Botanica "SUN" kids mineral sunscreen...to name the ones I can remember. I like BurnOut Kids the best for several reasons: 1) it works well even on my son's pasty-white skin 2) it's not greasy at all 3) it blends in really well and doesn't leave you looking too white. 4) And most important, it got really safe marks on the EWG (Environmental Working Group) web site. The only negative is it leaves your skin with a slightly tacky feeling, but to me it's much better than a greasy feeling.
We tried Burnout along with Blue Lizard and Hara after learning a bit from the Environmental Working Group's 2010 sunscreen reviews on toxicity. Burnout was the most expensive but did the best job. We were in full August sun for two weeks at the Jersey shore. No reapplication necessary from what we noticed and we never burned. Easier to apply than Hara and Blue Lizard and no smell whatsoever.
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This is not a holy grail sunscreen for me, but it's darn good. I've tried three versions of BurnOut. It is somewhat sticky and it takes a few minutes to spread evenly. The stickiness is worth putting up with. Be sure to use enough -you need about 1/4 teaspoon for your face. Burnout is not as white as Badger or Loving Naturals, but it IS a bit white. Any zinc oxide sunscreen is going to be. Sometimes I mix a little gel bronzer in it to tone down the whiteness. Many days, I just put up with it. I am an outdoorsy type who is most concerned with protection.
I live in the southern US and spend time on the beach. I can assure you that, properly applied, there is NO tanning with this sunscreen. I can spend two entire days on a Gulf Coast beach and return home without a single tan line.
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Forget that this says for kids...I'm 29 and my girlfriend and I have used this product for 3 months. In fact, I spent about 7 hours in the Miami, FL sun yesterday on the boat and have no sunburn whatsoever. I applied this all over my body before we went out and did not reapply. Only went swimming once though (about halfway through the day) and did not towel off. Not only was I protected but I was not all pasty white the sunscreen rubs in well not as well as the chemical stuff but none of my friends noticed anything on my skin.
It took me a long time but I found this sunscreen was the only one on Amazon to meet my criteria:
1) Highly rated with a good number of reviews
2) Scores no higher than a 1 on the EWG Skin Deep database
3) Verified and openly NON nano zinc oxide
4) Zinc oxide only (no chemicals or titanium dioxide)
5) A price that I can actually afford
Now more detail:
1) My first ever experience with physical sunblock (using zinc oxide, I think it was a Neutrogena product about 3-4 years ago) as opposed to the chemical variety was not good. It hardly rubbed in at all, left me very pasty white (with little white specks all over me), and came off in a cloud in the pool. I was not eager to try it again...but I read many bad things about the chemicals in modern sunscreens and while not perfect itself, zinc oxide is the better choice. One of the reasons I love Amazon is because of the reviews I try not to buy any products that aren't highly rated. For me, Burn Out sunscreen lives up to the solid reviews it's earned here.
2) The Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep website that ranks products based on their danger/toxicity scores this product a 1 on a scale of 0-10 (0 being the safest). I could not find any sunscreen products that scored a 0 so naturally I aimed for the next best score: 1.
3) This one is important. The first thing I found was that companies were using smaller "micronized" zinc oxide particles because they reduced the whiteness of the product and allowed it to rub in to the skin better. Obviously I don't want a sunscreen that's going to leave me looking ghostly white. However, it appears that some went too far and started having nano particles of zinc oxide. The danger is that nano zinc oxide may penetrate your skin and be absorbed into your blood stream you don't want that to happen. Many products I checked out either did not specify the size of their zinc oxide or were dangerously close to nano size. I found this easily on Burn Out's website in the FAQs:
"There are no nanoparticles in any BurnOut products. A nanoparticle is any particle that is 100 nanometers or smaller; many products using nanoparticles use a particle size of 20-60 nm. The zinc oxide in BurnOut has a minimum particle size of 1 micron (1000 nanometers 10x the size of the largest nanoparticle)."
As you can see, there is no danger of finding any nano particles in Burn Out Sunscreen.
4) The latest recommendation is to avoid chemicals and to choose zinc oxide as the physical sunblock rather than titanium dioxide. So...zinc oxide only.
5) Some sunscreens are like $10/ounce. I just can't afford that! At $5.29 an ounce ($17.99 for 3.4 ounces) this is an expensive sunscreen but worth it, in my opinion.
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This is my favorite, favorite sunscreen to use on my children.It's a runny lotion and rubs in so easily.My two-year-olds will not tolerate me rubbing in thick sunscreen all over their faces.With this, they don't struggle as much and I can rub it in fast and easy.
It can leave the slightest paleness to your skin but it really isn't bad.My kids are half Greek; my daughter is olive skinned and my son is out-right tan.They just both look a shade lighter but not white.
I also use it myself, including on my face, and love it.It has a high glycerin content so it can feel a little tacky sometimes but it doesn't last long.
I have tried so many physical sunscreens (Vanicream, Purple Prairie, Trukid Sunny Days, Trukid Sunny Days Sport, Episencial Sunny Sunscreen, Badger, Goddess Garden Baby, ThinkBaby, Kabana, Kabana Tinted, Eco Logical Body, Eco Logical Face, Eco Logical Baby, etc).BurnOut Kids is my primary choice for my children because of ease of application.I hate "sunscreen drag" and some of the aforementioned sunscreens have it.I do not want to tug and pull and push on my skin to rub something into it.I want a product to glide over my skin easily and this does just that.
I also love the Eco Logical sunscreens.I use those and BurnOut on myself, but I use only BurnOut on my kids just because it is so easy to rub into their faces while they are struggling to get away from me.
This is one of the few products that does not make me break out. Does not go on too thick and moisture lasts all day.
