Chemical filter

Octocrylene

UVB/short-UVA filter and the usual avobenzone stabiliser. TGA called current use low risk. Can form benzophenone if stored hot. EU environmental file is open.

Octocrylene covers UVB and short UVA2 and is the classic photostabiliser for avobenzone. Australia allows 10%. The EU allows 10%, or 9% in propellant sprays.

TGA’s July 2025 review classed current Australian use as low risk. SCCS considers dermal use up to 10% safe and says the endocrine evidence is not conclusive enough to set an endocrine-specific point of departure. Contact allergy is uncommon; photoallergy is disproportionately linked to prior ketoprofen use.

Two separate issues get mixed together. First, octocrylene can degrade to benzophenone, especially above about 40°C. Benzophenone is not a permitted sunscreen active; TGA wants that impurity capped because of possible carcinogenic risk at high chronic doses. Store the bottle out of heat. Second, France has proposed an EU REACH restriction on environmental grounds (suspected persistence, bioaccumulation and endocrine effects in wildlife); its public consultation ran to March 2026 and no decision has been made. That is not a human endocrine ban.

Fine in a good formula. Not a first-choice filter if a modern triazine can do the same job.

Sources

Sunscreens with Octocrylene

Are we sloppy? Tell Gus.