--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sam Sanders: This summer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got on social media and started talking about a big problem that needs attention right now. What are you going to talk about today?
--:-- Sam Sanders: We are here to talk about sunscreen, specifically U.S. sunscreen and how to fix it. U.S. House member AOC ringing the alarm on sunscreen.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I was in South Korea earlier this year, and it is so clear how far advanced the rest of the world is on sunscreen. And we deserve better here in the U.S. AOC is right.
--:-- Sam Sanders: You might be surprised to know that most of the rest of the world has better sunscreen than the U.S. has. It has been since 1999.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It was the last time that we had a new sunscreen filter in the United States. AOC wants to change that.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Here's the thing, though. There is something that we can do about this. This episode of Today Explained, why American sunscreen is so bad and how to fix it.
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--:-- Sam Sanders: They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock.
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--:-- Sam Sanders: Hey, I'm Sam Sanders, guest hosting for Today Explained.
--:-- Sam Sanders: This episode is all about sunscreen. And in full disclosure, I must tell you, dear listener, right now, I don't wear sunscreen that much.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I didn't wear that much this summer. I won't wear that much this fall. I probably won't wear that much in the winter because I don't like how it feels on my skin.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It just feels bad. It gets in my eyes. It makes my skin way too greasy, and that breaks me out.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Then there are some sunscreens that turn my dark skin white. That's weird. Okay? It's weird.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Anywho, our first guest, Amanda Mull of The Atlantic, she says, I am not alone.
--:-- Amanda Mull: I think your experience is a really common one. Your reasons are valid and your method of dealing with them is also valid.
--:-- Amanda Mull: The best thing you can do is just cover your skin. Cover it up. You know, wear sunglasses, wear a hat, wear long sleeves, things like that.
--:-- Amanda Mull: That's actually going to be better than sunscreen if you stay in the shade, stay covered.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But in situations where you're in direct sunlight and can't necessarily stay covered, I think that people's hesitancy to wear sunscreen matches pretty closely with what you've described.
--:-- Amanda Mull: A lot of American sunscreens are kind of unpleasant. And that is what we are here to talk about today.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Our sunscreen is whack. What is the problem, Amanda Moe?
--:-- Amanda Mull: Well, the problem comes down to filters. Those are the active ingredients in sunscreen.
--:-- Amanda Mull: They're what prevents people from getting burned from absorbing UV rays while they're out in direct sunlight.
--:-- Amanda Mull: There are two types of filters. There are physical filters and chemical filters, which is a little bit misleading because they're all chemicals and they're all synthetic.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But one turns your skin white and one doesn't.
--:-- Amanda Mull: The chemical blockers are going to be generally the ones that feel a little bit oily or greasy.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And what they do is they absorb UVA and UVB rays.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And then the physical blockers are going to be the ones that tend to leave like a white or gray cast on your skin.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Those are going to actually prevent the UVA and UVB rays from making it to your skin at all.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And those two categories are what comprise all of the approved active sunscreen ingredients in the United States.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But here's the thing, and here's what AOC was talking about.
--:-- Amanda Mull: The amount of chemicals that the American FDA has approved to be in sunscreen is just a smaller list of stuff than what the rest of the world has approved.
--:-- Amanda Mull: What the U.S. has is some older sunscreen technology.
--:-- Amanda Mull: We haven't approved a new filter for use in the United States since 1999.
--:-- Amanda Mull: In that time, a lot of filters have come on the market in Europe, in Asia, in Australia, that are a little bit easier to wear.
--:-- Amanda Mull: They look better, they feel better, and they perform better.
--:-- Amanda Mull: They provide better sun protection and less chemical downside.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But we're not allowed to have those, which is what AOC was on about.
--:-- Sam Sanders: How surprised were you to see AOC wade into the great sunscreen debate?
--:-- Amanda Mull: I was a little bit surprised.
--:-- Amanda Mull: This is a topic that has come up over and over again over the years.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And it's really hard to get much purchase with people who can actually make any kind of regulatory difference for this topic.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It's something that a lot of people, a lot of anti-cancer activists, a lot of public health experts and advocates are really interested in, but it's just not like the sexiest topic and it's not something that a lot of people are willing to sort of use their political capital to wade into.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Yeah, well, it feels almost as if some people would say, this is so trivial.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But as soon as you begin to look into sunscreen and how important it can be in preventing a ton of skin problems, it does start to seem like not such a little thing.
--:-- Amanda Mull: There's very real health downsides for a lot of people and especially for fairer people or people who are more inclined to sunburn.
--:-- Sam Sanders: You just needed to wear some sunscreen. I was trying to get a tan. No, you were trying to get savage.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Whose side are you on, Eddie?
--:-- Eddie: What? What sides are there?
--:-- Eddie: Mine are the O zones.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Choose one.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But it affects everybody.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It just, the risk is different depending on how prone you are to burning.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Skin cancer is no joke.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Like, it is, for some people, pretty hard to diagnose, pretty hard to notice until it's gotten pretty bad.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And it can be very, very deadly.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And even when it's not deadly, it is incredibly unpleasant.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It can be disfiguring.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It can require lots of nasty treatments chemo things like that.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And preventing people from having to go through that or in preventing them from doing damage to their skin is really important.
--:-- Sam Sanders: What exactly does AOC want?
--:-- Amanda Mull: What she wants is to find some regulatory ways to put pressure on skincare companies to provide more of the information that the FDA is asking for.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And also to, I think, adjust FDA expectations to take more seriously the abundance of real world data and safety data that Europe and Asia has on some of these ingredients.
--:-- Amanda Mull: So I think it's sort of like a combination effort of getting the skincare companies to play ball a little bit more and then also getting the FDA to be a little bit less rigid in their regulatory stance toward these ingredients specifically because we do have such a preponderance of data from outside the U.S.
--:-- Sam Sanders: What has the FDA said? Are they going to do anything?
--:-- Amanda Mull: When I asked the FDA, they seemed not particularly enthusiastic about reconsidering all of the current data available.
--:-- Amanda Mull: What they told me is that they want just more clinical data from these companies.
--:-- Amanda Mull: That clinical data is very, very expensive to produce.
--:-- Amanda Mull: So the companies have said, basically, we're not going to do it.
--:-- Amanda Mull: We have all of this real-world use data from around the world from all kinds of different people with different skin tones, and this should be sufficient.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I want to get into the weeds, if we can, about how the FDA approves sunscreen.
--:-- Amanda Mull: So if you look at any bottle of sunscreen you buy, whether it's something from Sephora, something from Walmart, wherever, it's going to have a table on the back of it that explains the active ingredients, explains the dosages, explains the recommended usage.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It's going to look a lot like what you find on the back of a bottle of Tylenol or other over-the-counter medications.
--:-- Amanda Mull: That's because the active ingredients in sunscreen and the active ingredients in things like Tylenol fall under the same regulatory regime at the FDA.
--:-- Amanda Mull: That regime is referred to as GRACE.
--:-- Amanda Mull: GRACE, yes.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Which stands for generally regarded as safe and effective.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And the FDA's stance is that things that are going to be approved for OTC sale, which is what GRACE deals with, need to be extremely, extremely, extremely safe because things that are just going to be sold to the general public without a prescription or without doctor oversight are going to be misused in lots of different ways.
--:-- Amanda Mull: In sunscreen, that gets a little bit difficult because when you have new active ingredients that may be better, may be safer, developed outside of the United States, bringing them into the U.S. gets a little bit difficult.
--:-- Amanda Mull: When you bring something before GRACE testing, once it gets approved, anybody can use it.
--:-- Amanda Mull: You either have GRACE or you don't.
--:-- Amanda Mull: So the clinical trials that are required for GRACE testing and that are being asked of manufacturers for the sunscreen filters is just really, really, really expensive.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It takes a lot of time, a lot of labor, a lot of participants, a lot of data.
--:-- Amanda Mull: So companies will do that for prescription medications because they get then the exclusive and they can profit from it when none of their competitors can.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But for GRACE, no single company really wants to put up all of that money.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Do all that for an $8 bottle of sunscreen. Right.
--:-- Amanda Mull: So the amount of rigor that the FDA is asking for is really only worth it if it's a drug that only you own that you can sell for a lot of money.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Right. We have an approval situation set up to incentivize private development for singular private profit.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And when you're dealing with these types of filters, that just doesn't create the correct set of incentives to get them past the finish line with the FDA.
--:-- Sam Sanders: If you look at the European Union, for example, that is a regulatory body that is generally a little bit more stringent than the United States in many of its safety decisions when it comes to food, cosmetics, prescription drugs.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And the EU allows all of these ingredients in sunscreens.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Really, it's almost everywhere except the U.S.
--:-- Amanda Mull: There are a lot of people who take cosmetics and sun protection very seriously here in America, and they have begun to just order the better sunscreens from around the world and have them shipped here to America for their consumption.
--:-- Sam Sanders: How big is that market? And have you tried these better sunscreens? How do they feel?
--:-- Amanda Mull: That market is large and growing, is my understanding.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It's a little bit hard to measure because it is sort of a gray market.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Those products are not technically fully legal for sale in the United States.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But they are very popular here.
--:-- Amanda Mull: I have tried some of them.
--:-- Amanda Mull: You can find sellers on Amazon that have them, or you can find sort of pop-up websites that might get shut down.
--:-- Amanda Mull: It is a little bit dangerous to go that route because you don't know how they've been stored.
--:-- Amanda Mull: You don't know what the supply chain is.
--:-- Amanda Mull: You don't know if it's counterfeit product.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But the ones that I've used that I felt comfortable using are, it's like applying a skincare ingredient.
--:-- Amanda Mull: You can put it on and put your foundation over it or put it on and just go out of the house and no one can tell that you have sunscreen on.
--:-- Amanda Mull: You can't tell that you have sunscreen on.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Knowing that, knowing that AOC is on the case, what is the likelihood that the FDA changes or loosens these rules to help us get better sunscreen over here?
--:-- Amanda Mull: You know, I'm not entirely sure.
--:-- Amanda Mull: In 2014, the Obama initiative to get these sunscreen actives advanced through the FDA, it looked like it was going to work.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And then the FDA just kicked the can down the road, said that they needed more data, and then we've been in this stalemate ever since.
--:-- Amanda Mull: But I do think that it's great that there is this more public interest in these ingredients because public pressure is one of the only ways, I think, that we might get any sort of movement on this.
--:-- Amanda Mull: I think that these ingredients are really, really important because sunscreen is largely behavioral.
--:-- Amanda Mull: If people don't like putting it on, if people don't enjoy using it.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And people is me. Yes.
--:-- Amanda Mull: Then you just don't wear it.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And we need to be able to develop products that produce the behaviors that we want in people.
--:-- Amanda Mull: And we need sunscreens that look good on dark skin.
--:-- Amanda Mull: We need sunscreens that look good on oily skin.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Yo, tell me about it. Tell me about it.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And the technology exists.
--:-- Sam Sanders: We could do it.
--:-- Sam Sanders: We just don't have it here.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Thanks again to Amanda Mull. She is a staff writer for The Atlantic. Her column is called The Material World.
--:-- Sam Sanders: When we come back, we'll talk about the most sunscreened country on the planet.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It's Today Explained.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
--:-- Announcer: Ooh-ee-ooh, American sunscreen. Summer is here and it time to hit the beach. But to avoid sunburn and other skin problems make sure you protect yourself with American Sunscreen. The best sunscreen in America.
--:-- Announcer: American Sunscreen uses special FDA-approved sunscreen technology to ensure you stay safe when having fun in the su-
--:-- Sam Sanders: Excuse me, sir. Might I trouble you for a dollop of American sunscreen?
--:-- Sam Sanders: I'm on holiday from England, and I don't want my skin to burn in the hot American sun.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Um, sure. There you go, kid.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It's rather slimy, isn't it?
--:-- Sam Sanders: Yeah, well... Feels a little different to what we have in England, doesn't it?
--:-- Sam Sanders: Looks rather like I've bathed in milk, doesn't it?
--:-- Sam Sanders: Yeah, uh... Ooh-wee-ooh-wee-ooh-American sunscreen.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Well, anyway, this summer, make sure you bring a bottle of American... Excuse me, sir.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Yeah, what do you want?
--:-- Sam Sanders: It appears I'm rather sunburnt, sir.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It's quite painful, actually.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It does appear that way, yes.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I thought you said this was the best sunscreen in the world.
--:-- Sam Sanders: No, no, no. I said America. I was very clear about that.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Why, sir? Why would you do this to me?
--:-- Sam Sanders: Wee-oo, American sunscreen.
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--:-- Sam Sanders: So as we've established, America has pretty crappy sunscreen right now compared to the rest of the world.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And when it comes to the rest of the world, South Korea might have the best sunscreen, or at least they are the most into sunscreen.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Even AOC noted this.
--:-- Sam Sanders: So we called up Elise Hu, who previously lived in South Korea for years.
--:-- Elise Hu: I'm Elise Hu.
--:-- Elise Hu: I am a journalist and recently became an author of a new book called Flawless Lessons in Looks and Culture from the KBD Capital.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I asked Elise just how big on sunscreen South Korea actually is.
--:-- Elise Hu: Oh my gosh. South Koreans apply sunscreen with a nearly religious fervor.
--:-- Elise Hu: So I think the numbers on it are something like 90% of South Korean women wear sunscreen every day.
--:-- Elise Hu: And then for men, it's nearly 60%.
--:-- Elise Hu: So it is huge.
--:-- Elise Hu: This is something that boils down to culturally prescribed ideas of beautiful skin and societal norms for appearance.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I want to talk more about that, but I want to ask you specifically how your sunscreen regimen changed when you got to South Korea.
--:-- Elise Hu: And I was never serious about it.
--:-- Elise Hu: I grew up in the 90s and the aughts where people went to tanning beds and we put little like hearts stickers on our bodies and little palm tree stickers on our bodies so that we could see how much we tanned in a pneumatic tube, right?
--:-- Elise Hu: So it was ridiculous how different it was from what it was like growing up.
--:-- Elise Hu: And I went to South Korea and they put up sun sails at intersections while you're waiting for a red light.
--:-- Elise Hu: They give you shade just while you're standing at the corner?
--:-- Elise Hu: That's right.
--:-- Elise Hu: South Koreans are so good about avoiding direct sunlight that there are concerns that the population doesn't get enough vitamin D.
--:-- Elise Hu: So then they're actually having to supplement vitamin D.
--:-- Elise Hu: When you're vitamin D deficient, it could just be a matter of time before you develop chronic diseases.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Before you get there, how often are you wearing sunscreen? Only when I went to the beach, right? Or went to the pool.
--:-- Elise Hu: So I was used to kind of just spraying it on my body.
--:-- Elise Hu: I was transformed by my time and kind of the cultural norm of sunscreen in South Korea and just the prevention idea of caring for your skin, just preventing skin cancer, preventing premature aging.
--:-- Elise Hu: So by the time I came back, I became militant about it, not just for myself, but also for my three girls who cannot leave the house ever without putting sunscreen on their faces and bodies.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Really? I'm so serious about it.
--:-- Elise Hu: How much better is Korean sunscreen? Is it really worth the hype?
--:-- Elise Hu: I think it'd be foolish to say that an entire country of origin will be more superior than another country when it comes to products because in a global market, you know, ingredients can be sourced by anyone or any company.
--:-- Elise Hu: So I would say it feels lighter.
--:-- Elise Hu: It's less greasy.
--:-- Elise Hu: This is anecdotal, but I feel like my biggest problem with sunscreens in the U.S., the ones that I put on my face, even the ones that I spent a lot of money on, is the stinging when it kind of runs off your face in the shower, right?
--:-- Elise Hu: Or when you sweat.
--:-- Elise Hu: And you don't want to do that when you're running.
--:-- Elise Hu: So I find that Korean sunscreens, maybe because of the ingredients in the formulation, tend to be more gentle, right?
--:-- Elise Hu: And then they don't tend to sting or burn when they run into my eyes.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I need that.
--:-- Elise Hu: Yeah, I'll get you some.
--:-- Elise Hu: I'll get you some.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I have some recommendations.
--:-- Sam Sanders: The bald man who sweats a lot. Whenever I wear sunscreen, if I am at all warm, within three minutes, my eyes are burning.
--:-- Sam Sanders: See, you get that itching and cracking stuff, and look, boom, even burning.
--:-- Elise Hu: Now that's a really tough case.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Anyhoo, anyhoo, you have done sunscreen in Korea, you have done sunscreen in the US you looked into the business of the beauty and cosmetic industry for your book Give us a verdict Should people be wearing sunscreen every day?
--:-- Elise Hu: It is so crucial.
--:-- Elise Hu: It is the pillar of my skincare routine.
--:-- Elise Hu: So Korea is known for its 10-step or multi-step, at least, skincare routine.
--:-- Elise Hu: 10-step? Yeah, man.
--:-- Elise Hu: It starts with two kinds of cleansing.
--:-- Elise Hu: It goes into toner.
--:-- Elise Hu: It goes into essences and ampoules.
--:-- Elise Hu: and then various kinds of moisturizers, and then there's a sheet mask.
--:-- Elise Hu: But the most important part, the most important step, and I think that there's wide agreement on this among Korean dermatologists, is sunscreen.
--:-- Elise Hu: The incidence of early aging and incidence of skin cancer are far less per capita in Northeast Asia, So populations like South Korea and Japan and China, then the incidence of skin cancer in the West.
--:-- Elise Hu: And I think a lot of it is owed to these cultural norms of sun protection and prevention.
--:-- Sam Sanders: You've written about this in your book, Flawless. Extreme sunscreen culture in Korea plays into some cultural stuff going on in the country as well.
--:-- Elise Hu: Anytime we're talking about beauty culture, then we have to remember that there are standards that are often shaped by patriarchy.
--:-- Elise Hu: Globally, white supremacy, colonialism, and then obviously the big one, capitalism.
--:-- Elise Hu: In South Korea, I learned about this idea of lookism, which is looks-based discrimination.
--:-- Elise Hu: It's another form of oppression, right?
--:-- Elise Hu: Because your economic capital, whether you get jobs, can be dependent on whether you fit the current beauty standards of the day.
--:-- Elise Hu: So resumes would often require headshots.
--:-- Elise Hu: Every time you go and get a passport photo, they would Photoshop those by default.
--:-- Elise Hu: Oh my goodness! Yeah, because there's an expectation that you have really smooth skin and you don't have hairs out of place.
--:-- Elise Hu: and that your jaw isn't too wide.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Does that lead to a cosmetic and beauty industry that just has more stuff than America has?
--:-- Elise Hu: Absolutely.
--:-- Elise Hu: There's so much cool stuff they're doing over there.
--:-- Elise Hu: And it's interesting.
--:-- Elise Hu: And South Korea, because it is small enough to fit in the space between Los Angeles and San Francisco, yet is the third largest skincare and cosmetics exporter in the world competing with France and the U.S., that means South Korea's market is very well-developed and mature and competitive.
--:-- Elise Hu: Before that, after the Korean War, when the U.S. was the far richer country and had troops on the Korean Peninsula in the South, the desire was really for Koreans to mule, Koreans who were in America, you know, Korean immigrants to the U.S., to mule things like Pond's Cold Cream, American products back to Korea.
--:-- Elise Hu: And now it's totally flipped, right?
--:-- Elise Hu: Where those of us in the U.S. are constantly like, get me my Innisfree sunscreen, get me that Laneige lip sleeping mask, the snail mucin sheet masks, all the cool things that we want our friends who visit Seoul to bring back to us.
--:-- Elise Hu: For a country as small as it is, there is so much more in terms of innovation and offerings and R&D around skincare and cosmetics than you would expect.
--:-- Elise Hu: So yes, they are trying all sorts of cool new things.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And I looked into it because I think that physical beauty is this double-edged sword.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It's a paradox because on one hand, it can be a vessel for expression and self-realization.
--:-- Sam Sanders: On the other hand, it can be a crutch because we end up investing all of our time and our sense of self and can come at the expense of becoming a full person.
--:-- Sam Sanders: So it is this fascinating paradox to look into, and South Korea just happens to be the epicenter of all of that.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Alice Shu's book is called Flawless. Lessons in looks and culture from the K-beauty capital.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Our show today was produced by John Aarons.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Edited by Miranda Kennedy.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Engineered by David Herman.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And fact-checked by Laura Bullard.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And thanks to Isla May Terrell.
--:-- Sam Sanders: The rest of the team includes Halima Shah, Abhishai Artsy, Hadima Wagdi, Amanda Llewellen, Miles Bryan, Victoria Chamberlain, Siona Petros, Patrick Boyd, Rob Byers, and host Noelle Keene.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And Sean Ramaswaram.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Our supervising producer is Amina El-Sadi.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy.
--:-- Sam Sanders: I'm Sam Sanders, and I host another podcast that I think you might want to check out.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It is called Intuit.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It comes from Vulture in New York Magazine.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It is a twice a week pop culture smorgasbord, all about the pop culture we can't stop thinking about.
--:-- Sam Sanders: We have a new episode in the feed right now where I interview author Brandon Taylor about his latest novel, The Late Americans.
--:-- Sam Sanders: And then we talk about why BookTok and Bookstagram and the online discourse around books is kind of broken right now.
--:-- Sam Sanders: It's a good chat.
--:-- Sam Sanders: If you like to read, I think you'll like it.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Into it. Go check it out right now.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Okay, this podcast is called Today Explained.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Thank you.
--:-- Sam Sanders: Thank you.
--:-- [Theme music fades out]
