Dermatol Clin 24 (2006) 53 – 62
Sunscreen Product Formulation
Paul R. Tanner, BST
Skin Care, The Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, OH, USA
With the growing awareness of the damaging
effects of solar ultraviolet (UV) rays over the past
10 years, sunscreen products are becoming more and
more a part of everyday life, showing up in the form
of daily moisturizers, antiaging products, and even
cosmetics, in addition to the traditional beach or
recreational sunscreen products. As a consequence of
this growth, however, a brief walk through a typical
large grocery or drug store will reveal a bewildering
array of sunscreen products in various forms that
make a wide range of product claims.
This article provides a general overview of the
technology behind sunscreen product formulation,
including perspective around the choice of sunscreen
actives and the design of the product vehicle, and will
thus allow readers to better navigate their way
through the plethora of sunscreen products on the
market. The focus will be limited to sunscreen prod-
ucts, with no discussion of related products such
as after-sun products or sunless tanning products.
Further, it should be emphasized that sunscreens are
only one of the tools for protecting skin from the
damaging effects of UV rays. Reducing exposure to
the sun during its most intense hours of the day and
wearing protective clothing are also critical elements
in a sound safe sun strategy.
T Skin Care, The Procter & Gamble Company, Sharon
Woods Technical Center, 11520 Reed Hartman Highway,
Cincinnati, OH 45241.
E-mail address: tanner.pr@pg.com
0733-8635/06/$ – see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.det.2005.09.002
Overview: what are sunscreen products, and how
do they work?
The primary function of a sunscreen product is to
protect the skin from the damaging effects of solar
UV radiation. To provide this protection, sunscreen
products contain sunscreen active ingredients. These
materials absorb, reflect, or scatter UV radiation that
is incident on the skin, thus intercepting the UV radia-
tion before it can penetrate into the skin and damage
key skin components such as DNA, collagen, elastin,
and lipids. Thus, much like an umbrella shields
people from the unwanted effects of rain, sunscreen
products shield people from the unwanted effects of
solar UV light.
To be highly effective in this function, however,
requires more than the right levels and combinations
of sunscreen actives. A sunscreen product must coat
the skin surface uniformly. Although this sounds like
a relatively simple task, in reality, achieving a uni-
form coating on the skin is quite a challenge, because
the topography of the skin is very uneven, commonly
being described as consisting of a series of peaks and
valleys. Additionally, the layer of applied sunscreen
is very thin, less than 0.001 inches thick.
Specifically, as can be seen from the illustrations
in Fig. 1, application of sunscreen product to the skin
can result in accumulation of excess product in the
valleys, with very poor coating of the peaks. The end
result of this uneven coverage is that even for a
product with a high level of effective sunscreen
actives, the peaks of the skin are not protected well,
and hence the overall measured product UV efficacy
will be poor [1,2].
derm.theclinics.com
54
A B
Skin Surface
Fig. 1. Sunscreen product applied to the skin surface. (A) Poor film formation. (B) Ideal film formation on the skin.
In contrast, uniformly coating the skin surface
including both the peaks and valleys, as shown in
Fig. 1, maximizes the UV efficacy of a sunscreen
product. In practice, to achieve this more uniform
coating on the skin, the sunscreen formulation typi-
cally is designed to have a very specific rheological
profile [3]. The viscosity of the product should de-
crease significantly during the high shear process of
spreading the product on the skin so the product can
cover the skin surface evenly. Additionally, the prod-
uct should recover its viscosity quickly immediately
after the rub-in process is complete (shear is re-
moved), so the product stays in place (does not pool
in the valleys).
The previous discussion involves coating the sur-
face of the skin. In general, penetration of sunscreen
active ingredients from a sunscreen product into the
skin should be minimized [4]. In this way, the sun-
screen actives reside on the outer surface of the skin
and can intercept UV rays before they can reach and
damage viable skin components.
The first key principle for formulating highly
effective sunscreen products is providing a uniform
film of sunscreen active on the skin surface.
Formulating sunscreen products: a step-by-step
review
The best way to learn about the many facets of
sunscreen product formulation is to go through the
typical steps in formulating a new sunscreen product.
This knowledge also should help in understanding
more about marketed sunscreen products, including
the differences between the many available product
forms and the reasons for the use of particular sun-
screen active combinations. In general, formulating
a new sunscreen product can be described as a series
of four key steps: (1) setting product design targets,
(2) selecting the sunscreen active system, (3) select-
ing/formulating the product vehicle, and (4) optimiz-
ing the product.
The end result of this four-step process is an
optimized sunscreen product that people will use
tanner
Skin Surface
regularly and properly. This is a critical point, be-
cause while the labeled product UV efficacy is cer-
tainly important, perhaps more important is the true
UV performance that people will achieve when they
use the product. Specifically, labeled product UV
performance is based on carefully controlled clinical
testing, uniform application of 2 mg/cm2 of product
to a small, flat area on the back typically followed by
a controlled drying period. Real-world UV perfor-
mance, however, depends not only on sunscreen prod-
uct clinical efficacy, but also on compliance, another
key principle of sunscreen product formulation. Com-
pliance encompasses both how regularly the product
is used (frequency) and how much product is applied
at each use (dose).
Why is compliance so important? The only way
for a sunscreen product to protect skin from solar UV
rays is for the product to be applied at an adequate
dose. Numerous factors are believed to impact sun-
screen product compliance, including product skin
feel, fragrance, appearance, packaging, and cost.
Specifically, if a sun protection factor (SPF) 30 sun-
screen product feels greasy or sticky, people will tend
to use less of it or use it less often, and hence the
product will provide much less protection than its
SPF 30 label. For example, one study showed that
daily application of an SPF 15 product provided
greater protection of the skin from numerous bio-
logical effects of UV rays than intermittent applica-
tion of an SPF 29 product [5]. Additionally, a 3-week
ad-lib study showed significant differences in usage
amounts between two commercial daily facial UV
moisturizer products, with the average dose per use
of an SPF 15 product being about twice that of an
SPF 30 product [6]. Importantly, given that SPF is not
a linear function of dose, the SPF 15 product in this
study actually provided significantly greater SPF pro-
tection in actual use than the SPF 30 product did.
Thus, compliance is the key to effective real-
world sunscreen protection, and hence compliance
should be a key overall goal of sunscreen product
formulation. This principle should be kept in mind as
the four-step process of formulating a sunscreen pro-
duct is discussed in detail.
 sunscreen product formulation 55

Step 1: setting product design targets
The first step in formulating a new sunscreen
product is to decide just what should be formulated.
Although some product requirements are universal,
like the product being safe to use, having adequate
microbial preservation, and being physically stable
under typical storage conditions, there are many
unique choices that must be made in designing a
sunscreen product, including:
 Type of product: Will the product be a beach
sunscreen, a moisturizer, a foundation, or an
antiaging product, and which part of the body
will it be used on?
 Product form: Will the product be a lotion,
cream, spray, stick, gel, or wipe?
 UV efficacy targets: What is the desired SPF?
Will the product provide UVA or broad spec-
trum claims, and will the product need to be
water resistant?
 Nonsunscreen claims: These claims could in-
clude, for example, moisturization, fragrance-
free, noncomedogenic, and even insect-repellant.
 Cost constraints: Specifically, how much money
is available per unit for the product formulation
and packaging?
 Where the product will be marketed: This is
very important, because sunscreen product regu-
lations vary considerably around the world [7].
 Aesthetic targets: These include numerous
product attributes, including fragrance, color/
appearance, and skin feel.
All of these choices are very important, given
they will have an impact on the options available for
steps 2 and 3, selecting the sunscreen active system
and selecting/formulating the product vehicle, re-
spectively. For example, if it is desired to make
water-resistant claims, water-soluble sunscreen ac-
tive ingredients are generally not good options. Alter-
natively, if the product is targeted for beach use, an
aerosol spray in a metal container may not be ideal
given the high temperatures and direct sunlight to
which the product likely will be exposed. Thus, it is
important to consider the full range of product de-
sign features before actually embarking on the for-
mulation of a new sunscreen product.
Step 2: selecting the sunscreen active system
Once the design targets have been set, the focus
then becomes how to formulate the best product to
meet those targets. Typically, the best sunscreen
product is the one that most effectively manages
factors such as skin feel, skin compatibility/irritation,
and cost. Importantly, from a formula ingredient stand-
point, the sunscreen active ingredients by far have the
single greatest impact on all of these factors, and
hence the selection of a sunscreen active system is
often the starting point in formulating a new sun-
screen product.
To understand why the sunscreen active ingre-
dients have such a big impact, it is necessary to first
understand a bit more about the globally available
sunscreen active ingredients. Sunscreen active in-

Fig. 2. Data from a 2003 survey of 88 marketed sunscreen products in the United States, showing the variation in labeled
sunscreen product active level with labeled product SPF and measured product broad spectrum efficacy based on critical
wavelength measurements [7]. Products with critical wavelengths less than 370 nm were classified as not broad spectrum.
56 tanner
gredients work by attenuating solar UV light by
absorbing, reflecting, or scattering. This UV light
attenuation by sunscreen active ingredients can be
quantified by both the magnitude and the wavelength
range or breadth of the attenuation [8]. The magni-
tude and breadth of UV attenuation vary widely
between the different sunscreen active ingredients,
with some active ingredients attenuating predomi-
nantly UVB rays with wavelengths of 290 to 320 nm.
Others attenuate shorter UVA rays with wavelengths
from 320 to 340 nm, and still others attenuating
longer UVA rays with wavelengths from 340 to
400 nm. Further, higher levels of sunscreen active
ingredients generally increase the magnitude of UV
light attenuation. Importantly, while sunscreen regu-
lations vary around the world, each country generally
imposes a maximum level of each specific sunscreen
active ingredient that can be used in a sunscreen
product [7]. Thus, to formulate a sunscreen product
that provides both a high SPF and protection against a
broad spectrum of UV wavelengths (UVA in addition
to UVB) requires the use of multiple sunscreen active
ingredients in combination to achieve the necessary
magnitude and breadth of UV attenuation.
To demonstrate these points, Fig. 2 shows the
results of a 2003 survey of 88 marketed sunscreen
products in the United States [9]. Average sunscreen
active levels in marketed sunscreen products range
from about 5% to about 35%, and as the labeled prod-
uct SPF increases, the level of sunscreen active in-
gredients in the formula also greatly increases. For
example, the average sunscreen active ingredient
level almost triples in going from SPF 15 products
to SPF 40 to 50 products. Further, to achieve broad
spectrum protection against all wavelengths of UVA
and UVB at any given SPF requires on average 3.5%
more sunscreen active ingredients, demonstrating the
additional challenge of adding long-wavelength UVA
efficacy to a sunscreen product.
Thus, at levels of 5% to 35% and more, sunscreen
active ingredients comprise a very large portion
of a sunscreen product formulation. This is an ex-
tremely important point, especially given that these
sunscreen active ingredients carry various general
and individual tradeoffs that inevitably become
the focal point of selecting a sunscreen active sys-
tem [10].
To better understand these sunscreen active trade-
offs, it is first necessary to understand more about the
physical characteristics of the sunscreen active ingre-
dients. From a formulation perspective, sunscreen
active ingredients can be categorized into four groups
based on their physical properties: polar oils, oil-
soluble crystalline solids, water-soluble salts, and in-
soluble particulates. All possess significant skin feel or
skin appearance tradeoffs, particularly at higher levels.
1. Polar oils, such as octinoxate and octisalate,
represent the most common type of sunscreen
actives. These oily materials, however, tend to
make products feel greasy and oily, especially
at high levels.
2. Oil-soluble crystalline solids, such as oxy-
benzone and avobenzone, require relatively
high levels of oily solvents/emollients to dis-
solve them and keep them from crystallizing in
the product over time. Because of this solvent/
emollient requirement, use of these crystalline
actives also tends to make products feel greasy
and oily.
3. Water-soluble salts, such as ensulizole, tend to
reduce the thickening ability of most of the
commonly used aqueous polymeric thickeners.
This leads to the use of much higher polymer
levels to achieve a target product thickness, and
these high polymer levels can make the product
feel heavy or sticky on the skin.
4. Insoluble particulates, such as zinc oxide and
titanium dioxide, can make products feel dry
and draggy, and often also lead to an undesir-
able white appearance on the skin.
Additionally, beyond these specific individual
sunscreen active aesthetic effects, there is an added
general negative skin feel effect that comes from
putting high levels of sunscreen actives in a product,
higher coated feel on the skin. Specifically, the largest
single component of most marketed sunscreen
products is a volatile carrier material, typically water.
Thus, when a layer of a sunscreen product is applied
to the skin, most of the product (water) evaporates,
leaving behind a thinner layer of nonvolatile material
consisting of the sunscreen active ingredients
together with product vehicle components. As the
product SPF is increased, however, the sunscreen
active ingredient level is increased greatly. As a re-
sult, much more of the applied product is left behind
on the skin, and the skin feels more heavy and coated.
Thus, even if significant work is done to try to miti-
gate the greasy, draggy, or sticky effects of the spe-
cific sunscreen active ingredients, the skin will still
be left with an overall unpleasant coated feeling given
the high level of nonvolatile materials left behind
from the sunscreen product. This effect is illustrated
in Fig. 3.
On top of the general and specific skin feel
tradeoffs with the use of high levels of sunscreen
 sunscreen product formulation
Fig. 3. Impact of sunscreen product SPF level on the amount
of nonvolatile left coating the skin after application of sun-
screen product to the skin.
active ingredients, there are two additional tradeoffs
generally associated with sunscreen active ingre-
dients. First, sunscreen active ingredients are some
of the most expensive materials in a sunscreen
formulation, often collectively accounting for over
half of the total cost of the formula. Second, some
sunscreen actives are known to elicit slight irritant
responses in subjects predisposed toward these types
of reactions.
All three of these factors related to sunscreen
actives—skin feel, cost, and skin compatibility—
influence sunscreen product compliance, directly
affecting whether people will use the sunscreen
product regularly and properly (ie, at an appropriate
dose), and whether they repurchase the product.
Thus, the third key principle of sunscreen product
formulation is efficiency, minimizing the amount of
sunscreen active ingredients needed to achieve a
given efficacy target, and hence delivering lower cost,
less irritating, and better feeling sunscreen products
that people will use more regularly.
Although there are several ways to increase
sunscreen efficiency by manipulating the product
vehicle, from strictly a sunscreen active ingredient
standpoint there are also a few known approaches.
Use photostable sunscreen active systems
Although many sunscreen actives are photostable,
meaning that they retain their ability to attenuate UV
rays over time as they are exposed to UV (for
example, on the skin), there are a few sunscreen
active ingredients, most notably the UVA sunscreen
avobenzone, whose UV efficacy decreases as they are
exposed to UV [10]. This loss in UV efficacy for
57
photo-unstable sunscreen actives is because of a
change in the sunscreen molecular structure, such as
isomerization, degradation, or even chemical reaction
with other ingredients in the product. Any level of
photo-instability reduces the ultimate UV perfor-
mance of a sunscreen system.
Thus for optimal efficiency, sunscreen active sys-
tems with good photostability should be selected,
either by avoiding photo-unstable sunscreen actives,
or including additional ingredients capable of photo-
stabilizing the inherently photo-unstable actives. For
example, there are numerous approaches to improve
the photostability of avobenzone, including using
specific photostabilizing solvents [11] and additives
[12], and using combinations of avobenzone with
specific levels of certain other sunscreen active in-
gredients like octocrylene [13].
Adequately disperse particulate sunscreen active
ingredients
The effectiveness of particulate sunscreen actives,
most notably titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, varies
significantly with their degree of dispersion in the
sunscreen product and ultimately on the skin [14].
Thus, for maximum UV efficiency, it is recommended
to use a combination of chemical (dispersing aids)
and mechanical (high shear equipment) energy to
achieve and maintain adequate dispersion of these
particulate sunscreen active ingredients.
Include sunscreen active ingredients in all of the
product phases
As will be discussed in the section on vehicle
formulation, most marketed sunscreen products are
emulsion systems consisting of both water and oil
phases [15]. By formulating sunscreen actives into
each of these two phases, all areas of the product film
on the skin include active ingredients; hence superior
sunscreen efficiency often results.
Finally, given the increasing interest in the dele-
terious effects of UVA rays on the skin, it should
be noted that most modern sunscreen products are
designed to be broad spectrum, providing significant
long wavelength UVA efficacy in addition to deliv-
ering their target SPF (which is primarily a function
of a product’s ability to attenuate UVB and shorter
UVA wavelengths). Importantly, as noted earlier, de-
livering broad-spectrum UVA efficacy at a given
SPF adds an additional burden on the choice of sun-
screen systems, generally requiring the use of higher
sunscreen active levels. As a potential approach to
remedy this use of higher sunscreen active ingredient
levels in broad-spectrum products, it is noteworthy
that two of the tricks for increasing sunscreen effi-
58 tanner

Silicones Oily or
Ester Oil Soluble Glycerin
Hydrocarbon Emollients Sunscreen Ethanol Water
Emollients Actives Glycols
(Mineral Oil)

(less polar) (more polar)

Fig. 4. Sunscreen product ingredient classification by polarity, ranging from low polarity oily or hydrophobic materials to
high polarity or hydrophilic materials.

ciency center around the only three currently globally
approved sunscreen active ingredients capable of at-
tenuating long wavelength UVA: avobenzone, tita-
nium dioxide, and zinc oxide.
Thus, the selection of a sunscreen active system
involves selecting an efficient sunscreen active in-
gredient combination to minimize general and spe-
cific sunscreen active ingredient tradeoffs related to
cost, skin feel, and skin compatibility, while meeting
the desired UV efficacy targets.
Step 3: selecting/formulating the product vehicle
Having identified the product design targets and
the starting sunscreen active system, the next step is
to design the product vehicle. The key to under-
standing the range of vehicle choices that are pos-
sible, how they are formulated, and their respective
pros and cons is to first understand the key concept
of ingredient polarity. In its simplest sense, materials
can be grouped based on how polar they are,
with very nonpolar or hydrophobic materials like
mineral oil and silicones at one end of the scale and
very polar or hydrophilic materials such as water,
glycerin, and glycols at the other end of the scale
as is shown in Fig. 4. All of the ingredients used in
sunscreen products can then be placed on this scale,
with materials with similar polarity generally being
mutually soluble (likes dissolve likes), and materials
with very different polarity generally not being com-
patible with each other. There are technical parame-
ters that more quantitatively describe ingredient
polarity, for example the Hansen solubility parameter
[16]. For the purposes of this discussion of sunscreen
product formulation, however, the general polarity
concept will suffice.
With this background, the broad range of sun-
screen product forms can be described by a combina-
tion of their polarity and their viscosity or thickness,
as is illustrated in Fig. 5. Thus, products can be cate-

Emulsion Based
Ethanol / With Both Water Water
Oil Based Oil Based And Oil Phases Based

(thicker)
Sticks

Creams
Ointments
Product
Viscosity Aqueous
Oily Gels Gels Lotions Gels

Oils
Mousses
(thinner) Sprays Sprays Sprays

(less polar) (more polar)

Polarity

Fig. 5. Range of sunscreen product formulation types by overall formula polarity and product viscosity.
 sunscreen product formulation
gorized by whether they are water-based, oil-based,
ethanol/oil-based, or emulsions that contain both
water and oil phases, as well as by whether they are
thin, thick, or even solids. The following is a detailed
discussion of each type of sunscreen product form.
Oil-based products
As is shown in Fig. 5, oil-based sunscreen
products range from thin oils and oily sprays to thick
gels and ointments, to solid stick formulations, with
the only difference between these various oil-based
product forms being the amount of thickening agent.
Generally, these oil-based sunscreen products are rela-
tively easy to make, because most sunscreen active
ingredients are either oils or oil-soluble crystalline
solids. For example, combining oily sunscreen ac-
tive ingredients with emollient oils yields a clear
sunscreen oil or oily spray product. Adding various
levels of thickeners such as waxes, particulates like
silica and clays, and oil-soluble polymers yields more
viscous oily gels and ointments, though heating to
above the wax melting point is required when waxes
are used in these systems. Finally, adding even higher
levels of waxes then leads to the stick form, similar to
most lipstick formulations on the market.
Unfortunately, although oily formulations are rela-
tively easy to make, they suffer from numerous sig-
nificant disadvantages, including heavy, greasy skin
feel, relatively poor package compatibility, high cost,
and generally low SPF on skin because of their poor
film-forming ability (the oils tend to not stay in place
on skin). Hence, these oily forms have found only
limited use as sunscreen vehicles in recent years, with
most of the marketed oily products in the form of
sticks for application to relatively small areas of the
body (ie, lips or noses).
Water-based products
Water-based products are virtually nonexistent in
the market, primarily because of the limited number
of water soluble sunscreen active ingredients and the
poor water and sweat resistance of these formula-
tions. In principle, however, formulating water-based
sunscreens is also fairly simple; combine water with
water-soluble sunscreen active ingredients and then
thicken the mixture by adding one of many commer-
cially available water-soluble polymers to yield a
clear or translucent gel.
Ethanol/oil-based products
Because of the unique solvency and volatility
properties of ethanol, ethanol-based sunscreen prod-
ucts can overcome many of the issues associated with
the oil-based and water-based sunscreen formula-
59
tions. Specifically, unlike water, ethanol is miscible
with most of the oily or oil-soluble sunscreen actives.
Further, while oily vehicles are typically nonvolatile
and hence leave large amounts of greasy residue on
the skin after product application, ethanol quickly
evaporates, thus reducing the amount of residual
material left on the skin and improving product skin
feel. Additionally, by adding various commercially
available polymeric thickeners, a range of product
viscosities can be prepared, ranging from thin sprays
and liquids to thick, easy-to-handle gels. Other ad-
vantages of these ethanol-based sunscreens that have
led to their relatively common use in the market are
their clarity, fast drying nature, and pleasant cooling
sensation upon application.
However, in spite of these advantages, there are
several potential issues. For example, ethanol-based
products can be drying and slightly irritating (sting-
ing) to the skin. Additionally, rapid evaporation of
ethanol from the product upon application to the skin
can lead to an uneven product film and hence lower
SPF performance [15]. Further, like oil-based sys-
tems, ethanol-based sunscreen gels can show incom-
patibilities with some packages, and hence particular
attention to this should be given when qualifying
these products. Finally, depending on their ethanol
content, ethanol-based sunscreens may present a fire
hazard during making, storing, or shipping.
Emulsion-based products
Sunscreen lotions and creams are the most com-
mon product form on the market [3,15]. In terms
of formula composition, these lotions and creams
are emulsions, or stabilized dispersions of one liquid
in another liquid, with the key difference being vis-
cosity. Generally thinner emulsions are called lotions,
while thicker emulsions are called creams. Although
various different emulsion types are possible, for
example oil-in-water, water-in-oil, and water-in-oil-
in-water emulsions, most emulsion-based sunscreen
lotions and creams are oil-in-water emulsions in
which microscopic drops of various oily materials
are dispersed in a continuous water phase that also
typically contains other polar ingredients like glyc-
erin or glycols. Thus, these emulsion-based systems
include materials spanning the full range of polarity,
and they can incorporate any of the four physical
forms of sunscreen active ingredients. This allows
maximum flexibility to select the most efficient sun-
screen active system, thus providing cost, skin feel,
and irritation benefits.
Beyond the ability to incorporate any type of
sunscreen active ingredients, these emulsion vehicles
60 tanner
have other important attributes that contribute to their
popularity. First, one of their main components is
water, which not only greatly reduces formula costs,
but also improves skin feel, because it is volatile and
reduces the amount of residual material left on the
skin after product application. Further, because these
emulsions contain both oil and water phases, they can
incorporate just about any other desired ingredient,
such as emollients, moisturizing agents, and anti-
aging active ingredients. Additionally, because of their
composition and structure, is it relatively easy to
control the rheology and film formation behavior of
emulsions systems. Hence emulsion systems tend to
be very efficient sunscreen vehicles. Finally, because
oil-in-water emulsions have water as the continuous
phase, these emulsion-based products tend to have
much better compatibility with a range of package
materials and types.
What is the price of all of this formulation
flexibility? The key tradeoffs with emulsions relative
to the other product forms are that they are more
difficult to stabilize and manufacture. The two main
challenges in stabilizing emulsions are to keep the
dispersed phase drops from combining, also called
coalescence, and to prevent the vertical movement of
the dispersed drops under the influence of gravity
because of the difference in densities of the emulsion
phases, a process called creaming. To reduce/prevent
coalescence, materials called emulsifiers generally
are added to the formulation. These emulsifiers are
molecules that contain a nonpolar or oil-like part
and a polar or water-like part. Because of this, in an
emulsion, these emulsifiers typically reside at the
interface around the dispersed drops, with the polar
part of the emulsifier residing in the water phase and
the nonpolar part of the emulsifier residing in the oil
phase. Thus these emulsifiers can be regarded as
forming a protective coating around each dispersed
phase drop, preventing the combining or coalescence
of two drops if they should come in close contact or
collide. There is a range of different types of emul-
sifiers, including polymeric emulsifiers and those that
help to form special structures called liquid crystals
and gel networks to provide even greater stability to
emulsions. The details of these materials are beyond
the scope of this text.
To protect against the forces of gravity and
prevent creaming, there are three general approaches:
match the densities of the two phases so there is
no tendency for the dispersed phase to settle or
rise, reduce the particle size of the dispersed phase
to reduce the driving force for settle/rising, or in-
crease the viscosity or structure of the external phase
to limit the mobility of the dispersed phase. The lat-
ter approach is employed most commonly, with low
levels of various polymeric thickeners being effective
in stabilizing emulsions against the forces of gravity.
Manufacturing sunscreen emulsions typically in-
volves two separate mixing vessels, one for the water
phase into which water and the polar emulsion com-
ponents are added, and one for the oil phase into
which the nonpolar or oily emulsion components are
added. Each phase is mixed until uniform, heating
each phase if necessary to melt any waxy materials
present. The dispersed phase then is added to the
continuous phase, which for the case of the com-
mon oil-in-water emulsions means that the oil phase
is added to the water phase. After combining the
phases, the resulting emulsion typically is subjected
to high shear to reduce the particle size of the dis-
persed phase droplets. There is a great amount
of expertise around making and stabilizing emul-
sions today; hence these two emulsion tradeoffs typi-
cally are not seen as significant limitations within
the industry.
Beyond the general discussion of water-, oil-,
ethanol/oil-, and emulsion-based sunscreen formula-
tions, a few comments should be made concerning
sunscreen sprays and wipes. For sprays, the sun-
screen formulation is forced through a special orifice
under the pressure created by either a mechanical
pump or moderate levels of aerosol propellants,
thus being atomized into small drops that travel to
the intended surface (skin). Generally, to achieve
small, aesthetically pleasing drops requires low
product viscosity, and hence only thin versions of
water-, oil-, ethanol/oil-, or emulsion-based sunscreen
formulations are useful in spray products. Spray
products allow the user to apply product onto hard-
to-reach places, although many sunscreen spray
products still need to be rubbed into the skin for
uniform coverage. Related to sprays, certain thin oil-
in-water emulsion-based sunscreens also can be made
into mousse products by adding low levels of aerosol
propellants and packing the product into an appro-
priate mousse package.
Sunscreen wipes consist of sunscreen formula-
tions absorbed onto a nonwoven substrate, and these
formulations also need to be thin to adequately ab-
sorb into/onto the substrate. Thus, similar thin sun-
screen formulations are used for sunscreen sprays and
wipes. The sunscreen wipe substrate provides a con-
venient applicator for easy coating of the skin with a
uniform film of product. One potential issue unique
to these types of products, however, is that the
substrates are often not inert, but rather can interact
with the sunscreen active ingredients and other com-
ponents of the formulation (preservative, for exam-
 sunscreen product formulation
ple). Thus, careful stability testing is necessary with
sunscreen wipe formulations.
Step 4: optimizing the product
Once the initial sunscreen active system and initial
product vehicle have been selected based on the
product design targets, arriving at a final formula that
meets all of the various design targets often involves
an iterative process of testing, modifying the for-
mulation, and retesting. Some of the key types of
testing often involved in this iterative optimization
process are:
 UV efficacy testing, typically using fast and in-
expensive in-vitro UV efficacy testing to evalu-
ate and optimize the SPF and UVA performance
of early prototypes. This optimization often in-
volves trying to maximize sunscreen efficiency
in meeting the product UV efficacy targets by
means of the modification of the sunscreen
active system and adjusting the product vehicle
to improve product film formation on the skin.
Optimized formulations are placed into in-vivo
clinical tests to confirm their SPF, and water re-
sistance or in-vivo UVA efficacy, if appropriate.

Skin feel assessments, either by expert panels or
actual consumers to confirm that the product has
acceptable in-use aesthetics, especially impor-
tant given the importance of compliance to real-
world product UV performance.
 Stability testing, including physical and chemi-
cal stability assessments, and microbial testing
to ensure adequate product preservation. Ideally,
this testing should be done in the final package,
given that there can be significant interactions
between packages and sunscreen formulations.
 [2] Ferrero L, Pissavini M, Marguerie S, et al. Efficiency
Migration testing for facial products, which
involves measuring the spreading rate of the
sunscreen product after it is applied to skin,
typically by monitoring the movement of the
sunscreen active ingredients on the skin by
means of fluorescence techniques. If the sun-
screen active ingredients spread too readily,
there is a greater chance of eye irritation from
the product migrating into the eye from the
surrounding skin (not to mention that UV per-
formance is likely to suffer because of poorer
film formation). Typically, sunscreen migration
is reduced by using either film-forming poly-
mers or absorbent particulates.
 Non-UV claims testing, for example moisturi-
zation or noncomedogenicity claims.
61
 Safety testing, although this typically is con-
ducted only on the final optimized formulation.
Although this optimization in theory could go on
indefinitely, in practice, companies have a finite
amount of time and money, and this often dictates
when in the iterative optimization process a final
formula is selected to take to the market. If the key
principles are followed, the end result of this four-
step formulation effort is an optimized product that
best meets the product design targets and that will
achieve a high level of compliance among consumers
who buy the product.
Summary
Much of the effort involved in the formulation of
a new sunscreen product is focused on managing the
tradeoffs associated with current sunscreen active
ingredients and the many potential product vehicles.
By keeping in mind, however, the key principles of
film formation on the skin, sunscreen efficiency,
material polarity, and compliance, one can design a
sunscreen product that best addresses the myriad of
sunscreen product performance and in-use parame-
ters. This optimized sunscreen product will be more
likely to be used regularly and properly by people,
and hence deliver real-world efficacy against the
damaging acute and chronic effects of solar UV radia-
tion on skin.
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