For the first time in the 21st century, the United States has approved a new sunscreen ingredient. Well, new to us.
It’s called bemotrizinol, also known as BEMT, and it’s been available in Europe and Asia for years. But the peculiar way that sunscreen is regulated in the United States — as an over-the-counter drug rather than a cosmetic — had long prevented it from coming to American store shelves.
In 2020, however, Congress ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to overhaul its sunscreen approval process, and in 2024, DSM Nutritionals, which manufactures a bemotrizinol-based sunscreen, asked the FDA for approval. After a review of relevant safety and efficacy data, bemotrizinol has become the first new sunscreen ingredient to be approved for sale in the US since the late 1990s. The Environmental Working Group, which has lobbied for bemotrizinol’s approval since 2019, called its approval “a monumental victory for health and wellness.”
Dr. Adewole Adamson, who is a dermatologist and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed that this is a win for consumers. “We haven’t been able to really have any innovation in US-based sunscreens since last millennium,” he told me.
Sunscreen use has ticked downward in the US, at the same time that concerns about sunscreen seeping into your body and causing adverse health effects have risen. BEMT’s boosters hope it can change that trend by promising broad protection, a more aesthetically appealing application, and less risk of it permeating your skin.
Sunscreen is already complicated, as Vox’s Allie Volpe covered in her 7 burning questions about sunscreen explainer. Now there’s a new ingredient to consider. Here’s what you should know.
Sunscreen and the sunscreen backlash, briefly explained
The sun emits a spectrum of ultraviolet rays, including two types — UVA and UVB — that can burn your skin if you are exposed for too long without protection.
That is why experts advise consumers to make sure they are buying “broad spectrum” sunscreen, which means it provides protection against both kinds of UV rays. Those products usually combine several different agents (or “filters”) that protect against different parts of that spectrum.
“Some filters only cover part of the spectrum, so you have to combine a bunch of them in order to get that broad-based coverage,” Adamson said.
Sunscreens are either “mineral” or “chemical.” Both types are equally effective if used correctly, assuming they have the same sun protection factor, or SPF, but each come with their own trade-offs. Mineral sunscreens leave unsightly white residue, while chemical sunscreens have faced widespread safety concerns in recent years.
The major shift came in 2019, when the FDA announced an overhaul in its safety assessment of some of the most popular sunscreen ingredients, sparking a backlash against chemical sunscreen in particular. The agency said that the two ingredients primarily used in mineral sunscreens — zinc oxide and titanium dioxide — were generally regarded as safe for human use. Two ingredients (aminobenzoic acid and trolamine salicylate) were said to be unsafe, and more than a half-dozen other ingredients used in chemical sunscreens were left a question mark due to “insufficient data.” New research soon followed that suggested that the ingredients in chemical sunscreens could seep into your blood and body in concerning concentrations, raising the specter of uncertain long-term health effects.
In response to the new findings and the doubts they raised about such a widely used product, anti-sunscreen advocacy spread, bolstered by the broader wellness and MAHA movements. As the Washington Post described, some people online boasted of stopping their sunscreen use — despite its clear effectiveness in preventing skin cancer, which kills thousands of people in the US every year — and promoted DIY formulas featuring, for example, oil and butter. (They do not confer the same protection.) Some influencers have even argued for the health benefits of more sun exposure.
One consumer analysis found that the percentage of Americans who believed sunscreen is toxic grew from 17 percent in 2021 to 24 percent in 2025. And, at the same time, the share of people who reporting using sunscreen at all has slightly declined.
Bemotrizonal is broad spectrum and could be more cosmetically appealing
Into that messy context comes a new sunscreen ingredient.
A big part of what makes bemotrizinol appealing is that it provides protection against both types of dangerous ultraviolet rays on its own. And not only does it provide that broad level of protection, Adamson said, but it could also be more “cosmetically elegant,” as he put it. It won’t leave those white streaks that mineral sunscreens do, which could encourage more people to actually put it on.
The shift toward mineral sunscreen in the wake of the chemical sunscreen panic has brought one unfortunate side effect: that white film on the skin of beachgoers and baseball game fans across the country. If you have ever applied zinc-centric sunscreen, you probably know the look (and that heavy feeling of the cream on the skin).
Chemical sunscreens can be annoying for people with sensitive skin, but by and large, people seem to prefer those products because they look better when wearing them. BEMT could make it easier for manufacturers to produce sunscreens that provide that broad level of coverage while being aesthetically more pleasing.
BEMT also comes with fewer safety concerns
The other hope is that bemotrizinol products will ameliorate some of the safety concerns that have driven sunscreen skepticism since 2019, when the one-two punch of the FDA’s announcement that most ingredients had “insufficient” data to judge their safety, followed by a worrying study, damaged the reputation of chemical sunscreens for the better part of a decade.
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The study, published in JAMA in May 2019, showed several popular chemical sunscreen ingredients appeared to penetrate a user’s body in volumes sufficient enough that they should trigger new safety studies. The authors noted that some of the ingredients had previously been found in human breast milk and other bodily fluids. The findings raised real concerns, thus the FDA’s policy shift — but those concerns also took on a life of their own in the health and wellness social media ecosystem, stoking doubts about sunscreen overall.
“That freaked everyone out. And everyone was like, ‘I don’t want to do chemical sunscreens. They’re terrible. They’re getting [in] your blood. They’re endocrine disruptors.’ All of that kind of fearmongering,” Adamson said. “This ingredient doesn’t seem to do that.”
He pointed me to preliminary evidence from clinical trials that indicates BEMT does not generally lead to the same kind of concentration in human plasma. The drug has already been in use in other countries for decades and has accrued a strong safety record. But the FDA’s policy of regulating sunscreen as an over-the-counter drug, rather than as a cosmetic, sets a higher standard for approval, which meant that it took more than 25 years for BEMT to finally cross the Atlantic from Europe to the US.
BEMT will be coming soon to stores near you
DSM Nutritionals will have exclusive rights for 18 months to sell their proprietary BEMT formulation Parsol Shield in the United States; after that, other companies will be able to sell sunscreens with it in them too. Going forward, consumers can check for bemotrizinol or BEMT on the ingredients list.
Whether or not you opt for BEMT, here is the thing to keep in mind about protection when you’re buying this or any sunscreen: SPF, or sun protection factor. Experts say that the ideal is between SPF 30 and SPF 50, which blocks 98 percent of the sun’s rays. Just remember that SPF above 50 adds minimal additional protection, and doesn’t mean you can spend longer in the sun without reapplying.
Advocates hope BEMT can revive people’s faith in sunscreen which, despite the recent controversies, remains a lifesaving product. Skin cancer is still the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, with more than 200,000 new cases expected this year. “American consumers deserve access to the best available sun protection,” Alexa Friedman, senior scientist at EWG, said in a statement. “Today they’re finally getting closer to it.”
The post The US just got its first new sunscreen in almost 30 years appeared first on Vox.
