Australian sunscreen and cosmetics company Naked Sundays says it has “paused” sales of one of its products, pending further testing to determine if its sun protection factor (SPF) claims are accurate.
The company on Monday published a statement on its website saying it had stopped selling its SPF50+ Collagen Glow Mineral Sunscreen in Australia “out of precaution” until it received additional test results.
Naked Sundays’ announcement came three days after another Australian brand, Ultra Violette, said it would immediately pull its Lean Screen Skinscreen product from shelves after tests found a “pattern of inconsistency” in its SPF results.
The Australian sunscreen industry and its regulation have been in the spotlight since June, when consumer advocacy group Choice published the results of an investigation into the SPF claims of popular brands.
Choice said it tested 20 popular SPF 50 or 50+ sunscreens from a range of retailers in a specialised, accredited laboratory and found 16 products did not meet their SPF claims.
In Choice’s test, the Ultra Violette Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Skin Screen, a higher-end product that retails for upwards of $50, returned an SPF result of just four. A second test returned a result of five, Choice said.
The consumer organisation did not test any Naked Sundays products.
Naked Sundays on Monday suggested it had been carrying out additional checks on its products since the Choice investigation came out.
“For the past few months we have taken proactive action behind the scenes, by doing our own due diligence [and] additional SPF testing across multiple independent labs,” the company said in the statement.
Naked Sundays said it had received a “large number” of customer inquiries about its Collagen Glow Mineral sunscreen in particular.
It said it would not disclose its manufacturing partners due to confidentiality agreements but that the product was made at “multiple manufacturers” in Australia and the US.
Naked Sundays said the US version of the product had already been retested and met the SPF50 claim advertised on the bottle, and that it planned to sell that version in Australia.
“Till then we’ve paused the mineral [sunscreen] from sale in Australia out of precaution, while we await new, complete independent SPF results, and subsequent guidance from the TGA on their investigation into SPF testing,” it said.
As part of its review of existing SPF regulations, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has said it is exploring alternative test methods that may be more reliable.
These include in vitro testing methods, in which sunscreen is tested on human skin deliberately exposed to UV radiation, which the TGA said could produce less variable results than the current standard practice.
Naked Sundays said the “pause” only related to the Collagen Glow Mineral sunscreen and none of its other products were affected.
The brand is stocked at leading beauty retailer Mecca, while Ultra Violette products are stocked at rival Sephora.
Mecca confirmed in a statement on Monday that it was removing all sizes of the SPF50+ Collagen Glow 100% Mineral Perfecting Priming Lotion from sale, effective immediately.
Mecca said it had made the decision jointly with Naked Sundays “while the brand awaits independent retesting of one of its manufacturing facilities to determine whether the product performs as advertised”.
It offered customers a full refund on the product, and said no others from the brand were affected.
Guardian Australia also contacted Sephora for comment.
