What Is the Sunscreen Filter Bemotrizinol?

For the first time in over 25 years, the Food and Drug Administration is proposing to approve a new sunscreen ultraviolet, or UV, filter for the U.S. market: bemotrizinol, or BEMT.

It’s a UV filter that since 1999 has been used in sunscreens in other countries, offering greater protection against harmful ultraviolet A, or UVA, rays.

UVA radiation is the sun wavelength that penetrates deepest into the skin, leads to premature skin aging, suppresses the immune system and increases risk of skin cancers, like melanoma. The sunscreens most Americans use do not provide enough UVA protection.

For decades, Americans have had access to fewer sunscreen ingredients than consumers in Europe and Asia. In some cases the sunscreen sold in the U.S. offers UVA protection that is much worse than the sunscreens sold overseas.

EWG’s own peer-reviewed research found that U.S. sunscreens deliver on average just 24% of the UVA protection implied by their SPF labels.