A New Kind of Sunscreen Reaches US Shelves After a 25-Year Wait
For the first time in more than a quarter-century, American shoppers have a genuinely new option in the sunscreen aisle. The ingredient is bemotrizinol, usually shortened to BEMT, a filter that Europe, Australia and parts of Asia have relied on for roughly two decades. Formulas from Neutrogena and other manufacturers are now arriving in stores and in online listings.
The US Food and Drug Administration added bemotrizinol to the over-the-counter sunscreen monograph on June 9, 2026, capping a review that opened with a proposed order in December 2025 and a public comment period. The final order permits concentrations up to 6 percent and covers adults and children as young as six months, carrying a "generally recognized as safe and effective" — GRASE — designation that no other chemical filter in the US currently holds. Products could legally be sold starting August 9.
Sun damage comes from two bands of light. UVB causes most sunburn; UVA penetrates deeper and is tied to skin cancer and premature aging. Sunscreens that block both can be labeled "broad spectrum protection" — those that can't must carry an FDA warning label. Bemotrizinol is the first chemical filter approved in the US that covers both on its own; formulators previously had to blend several ingredients to get there. "This ingredient provides a solution for what is currently a big gap with respect to providing strong UVA protection," said David Andrews, chief science officer of the Environmental Working Group.
BEMT also outlasts its competition in daylight: it retains more than 90 percent of its protective capacity after extended sun exposure, unlike avobenzone, the only other chemical UVA filter on the US market, which has long been dogged by instability. The safety file helped. The FDA reviewed studies of more than 500 patients run by Dutch manufacturer DSM Nutritional Products and found absorption into the body was nearly undetectable, with no irritation or allergic reactions over three weeks of daily use. "It's a molecule that's too big to really penetrate through the skin and get absorbed into the bloodstream," said Jennifer Stein, a dermatologist at NYU Langone Health.
The delay is structural. The US regulates sunscreen as an over-the-counter drug, while the European Union treats it as a cosmetic — a difference that makes American approval slower and more demanding. Bemotrizinol has been cleared in Europe since 2000 and sold there under trade names including Tinosorb S and Parsol Shield. The US allows up to 6 percent; Europe, India and Australia permit up to 10 percent. Its route into the American market ran through a streamlined monograph pathway Congress created in 2020.
Australian brand Ultra Violette moved fastest: Unblock Screen SPF 50 went on sale online on August 31 and reached Sephora stores nationwide on October 2, pairing 3 percent BEMT with zinc. Neutrogena followed on September 17 with two face sunscreens containing 6 percent — Ultra Sheer Daily Face Sunscreen SPF 70 and Clear Face Sunscreen SPF 60 — at $16.99 each, starting on Amazon with a nationwide retail rollout in October. Prestige labels had already sold BEMT formulas at around $40; Neutrogena pushed the same filter down into the drugstore tier.
DSM holds an 18-month exclusivity period running from August 9, so rival formulators can source bemotrizinol only through it or its licensees for now. That bottleneck helps explain why the early launches are small face products rather than family-size body bottles, and why a broader wave of reformulations is expected to stretch into 2027.
Dermatologists say nothing about the new filter changes the basics: reapply every few hours, and more often when swimming or sweating heavily. Sunscreen shouldn't be the only defense either — shade, hats and sun-protective clothing matter. On the environmental side, Washington does not classify sunscreens for ecological impact and "reef safe" claims carry no standard definition; the EU's environmental agency has found "limited evidence of environmental toxicity" for BEMT, though it says longer-term research is needed.