Australia's sunscreen scandal, one year on: what's changed

In June 2025, consumer group CHOICE published a test that shook one of the sunniest countries on Earth: 16 of 20 popular sunscreens, tested at a TGA-accredited laboratory, failed to meet the SPF on their labels. Thirteen months later, more than 20 products have been pulled from shelves or paused, and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has finished consulting on sweeping reforms to how SPF is tested, checked and labelled in Australia — with no final decision yet.

Here's how it unfolded, and where things stand as of July 2026.

The test that started it

CHOICE tested 20 sunscreens under the Australian/New Zealand standard (AS/NZS 2604:2021), which requires in-vivo testing — a measured dose of product applied to the skin of at least 10 human volunteers, who are then exposed to controlled UV from a solar simulator. Only four products met their claims: Cancer Council Kids SPF 50+ (tested at 52), La Roche-Posay Anthelios Wet Skin (72), Mecca Cosmetica To Save Body (51) and Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Body Lotion SPF 50 (56).

The headline result was Ultra Violette Lean Screen Mineral Mattifying Skinscreen SPF 50+, which returned an SPF of 4. CHOICE, anticipating scepticism, sent a different batch to a separate laboratory in Germany. It came back at SPF 5.

One point worth being clear about: Lean Screen is a zinc-oxide-based formula, but this is not a story about mineral versus chemical sunscreens. Products of both types failed CHOICE's testing, both types passed, and the recalls that followed tracked shared manufacturers and questionable test reports — not filter chemistry.

From pushback to recall

Ultra Violette initially rejected the findings. The brand suggested CHOICE's samples may have been compromised by heat and transit time, and pointed to its own results — an SPF of 64.32 when the product was first tested in 2021, and 61.7 in an urgent retest in April 2025.

By late August, the picture had changed. Across eight separate tests, Lean Screen had returned SPF results of 4, 10, 21, 26, 33, 60, 61 and 64 — a spread the brand could not reconcile with its label. On 22 August 2025, Ultra Violette voluntarily recalled all batches, citing inconsistency in the product's SPF, and cancelled it from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. The TGA noted users could face "an increased risk of sunburn during use and reduced prevention of skin cancer in the longer term."

"Today's announcement from Ultra Violette confirms there is a clear problem with how sunscreen is regulated," CHOICE chief executive Ashley de Silva said at the time.

The review that kept widening

What began as one product became a systemic investigation. The TGA identified 21 sunscreens across 17 companies that shared the same base formulation as Lean Screen, made by Perth contract manufacturer Wild Child Laboratories. Preliminary testing commissioned by the manufacturer indicated the base formulation was unlikely to deliver an SPF above 21 — and possibly as low as 4 in some products. In late September 2025, the TGA advised consumers to consider alternatives to those products.

By October 2025, of the 20-plus products under review, 18 had been recalled or had sales paused — 10 paused, 8 recalled or ceasing production — with two still being assessed. The regulator also raised "significant concerns" about the reliability of testing from UK-based Princeton Consumer Research Corp, a lab many affected companies had relied on for their SPF certificates. The recalls kept coming into summer: Cancer Council's Clear Zinc Kids SPF 50+ was recalled in December 2025.

CHOICE campaigns director Andy Kelly summed up the consumer-advocacy view: "Without this investigation, it's likely these products would still be available for sale."

The rulebook rewrite — still pending

On 26 March 2026, the TGA opened an eight-week public consultation, "Seeking improvements to the regulation of sunscreens in Australia". It's the most significant proposed shake-up of Australian sunscreen regulation in decades, covering:

• Testing reliability. Options include allowing or requiring laboratory-based (in-vitro) SPF testing alongside, or instead of, human in-vivo testing, which is known to produce variable results between labs.
• Laboratory oversight. The TGA currently neither selects nor accredits the labs that certify SPF — sponsors submit their own reports. The consultation canvasses TGA oversight and accreditation of testing laboratories.
• Labelling. Three options: keep SPF numbers as they are; keep the number but add plain-English context (for example, that SPF 30 filters roughly 97 per cent of UVB); or replace numbers with categories such as low, medium, high and very high. The headline-grabbing idea of dropping the number entirely is only one of the three.

The consultation also proposes stronger lifecycle quality assurance, updated manufacturing guidance, and aligning claims across therapeutic and cosmetic sunscreens. Submissions closed on 23 May 2026. As of July 2026, the TGA has not announced a decision — the SPF number stays on your bottle unless and until that changes.

What consumers should take from this

The uncomfortable truth exposed by this saga is that SPF testing on humans is inherently variable. Results for the same product can differ meaningfully between laboratories and test panels — that variability is precisely what the TGA's reforms aim to manage, and it's how a product like Lean Screen could hold a legitimate SPF 64 certificate and later test at 4.

None of this changes the core sun-safety advice, and experts have been emphatic on that point throughout. University of Sydney cancer epidemiology professor Anne Cust noted that "even sunscreens with a lower SPF are effective in preventing sunburn and skin damage from the sun." Real-world habits matter at least as much as the number on the label: "Even with a sunscreen that is SPF50, if [people] don't apply enough, they're actually not getting the full SPF," Cust said. Most people apply far less than the amount used in testing.

CHOICE's own guidance was similarly plain: any sunscreen is better than none. Apply generously, reapply regularly, and combine sunscreen with shade, a hat, sunglasses and protective clothing — in a country where two in three people will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime, the products in your beach bag were never meant to do the job alone.

If you're unsure whether a product you own was affected, the TGA maintains a current list of recalled and paused sunscreens on its website.