Best Mineral Sunscreens of 2026

Many people prefer to use mineral sunscreens instead of chemical ones for safety and environmental reasons.

In 2019 and 2021, the FDA proposed updated requirements for sunscreen, which are still pending. Among other things, it called on sunscreen manufacturers to provide more safety data on the chemical active ingredients. The agency said it was satisfied with the information it had on titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.

The issue with the chemical active ingredients was that two FDA studies showed they could get into the bloodstream through the skin. This led to concerns that they weren’t safe to use. But the FDA and many dermatologists say that’s not the case and that people should continue to use sunscreen.

Mineral sunscreens are thought to be less harmful to coral reefs and other ocean life compared with chemical ones (although much is still unknown about the possible effects of the many different sunscreen ingredients, alone and in combination.) And some people also find that chemical sunscreens irritate their skin.

Given all these unresolved issues, why not just opt for mineral sunscreens?

According to CR’s sunscreen tests, mineral sunscreens simply don’t provide the same level of sun protection as many (but not all) chemical ones do.

“None of the mineral-only or mineral-plus-chemical products in our current crop of sunscreens were highly rated,” says Susan Booth, who leads Consumer Reports’ sunscreen testing. “In fact, CR’s testing has never found a mineral sunscreen that came in at the top of the ratings. Most of them hover in the middle of the pack, or even lower.” Some mineral sunscreens provide adequate SPF protection but not enough broad-spectrum protection, or vice versa. All of the sunscreens CR recommends have chemical active ingredients.

We test only broad-spectrum sunscreens labeled SPF 30 or above. Most of the sunscreens are water-resistant. But because some facial sunscreens are meant for everyday use—not just when you’ll be swimming or sweating—a few of the ones we tested aren’t water-resistant. We’ve clearly marked which ones are (and for how long) and which ones aren’t in our ratings. 

CR uses a testing protocol that’s modeled on the one the FDA requires sunscreen manufacturers to use. But as is the case with other products we test that have government or industry standards, we use those standards as benchmarks and have developed our own methodology to identify differences in performance and give consumers a comparative evaluation.

“We buy the sunscreens for our tests off the shelf, the way consumers would,” Booth says. “We use three samples, preferably from different manufacturing batches [lots], of each product.” 

For SPF, we test the sunscreens on three people, which is fewer than the FDA’s protocol calls for, but we use a statistical analysis to verify our results. 

To check SPF in water-resistant sunscreens, a technician applies a standard amount of each sunscreen to a 2x3-inch rectangle on each panelist’s back. Then the panelists soak in a tub of water for 40 or 80 minutes, depending on the product’s water-resistance claim. (We perform the test after water immersion only for water-resistant sunscreens because if a sunscreen holds up on wet skin, it should hold up on dry skin.) Afterward, smaller sections of the rectangle are exposed to five or six intensities of UV light from a sun simulator for a set time based on how quickly the panelist’s skin burns without protection. (We also use a reference sunscreen with known performance to ensure the accuracy of the testing.) About a day later, a trained technician examines the areas for redness and determines the SPF.

The testing for non-water-resistant sunscreens involves the same steps—applying the sunscreen, exposing the skin to UV light, and examining the skin the next day—except for water immersion.

In order for a sunscreen to be labeled broad-spectrum, the FDA requires that it protect against UVA and UVB rays. To test for UVA protection, we apply sunscreen to plastic plates, pass UV light through, and measure the amount of UVA and UVB rays that are absorbed. That information is used to calculate our UVA score.

This process is similar to the one used in the critical wavelength test that the FDA requires sunscreen manufacturers to do in order to label their products broad-spectrum. But we apply the results differently. The critical wavelength test is a pass/fail test, and just as you can pass a test with either an A or a D grade, some sunscreens do a much better job of defending against UVA than others. That’s why we use a method similar to that used in other countries, which allows us to measure the critical wavelength and the level of UVA protection a sunscreen provides.

Our ratings are developed from the average results of all the SPF and UVA tests on a particular sunscreen, as well as how much the average CR- tested SPF varied from what’s on the label.

If you’re concerned about chemical exposure for yourself or the environment, or you have sensitive skin and prefer to use a mineral sunscreen, we think the products below are acceptable, although they’re far from being the top performers in our sunscreen tests.