Mineral Sunscreen: Reviewing Block Island Organics

Summer camp was approaching, which meant the dreaded question: What should my child wear?

Not clothing, mind you. Sunscreen.

As I've become more and more conscious of what we put in and on our bodies, I realized that one area we haven't truly touched in our family is the kind of sunscreens we put on our bodies. Frankly, I relied mostly on price.

Recently, I had the chance to review a mineral suncare brand called Block Island Organics. They are introducing a line of sunscreen products for babies, children and adults, and I was excited to try it for our week at Girl Scout camp. 

Block Island Organics sunscreens are promoted as being non-toxic and mineral-based (zinc and titanium), as opposed to chemical based, and include a zinc-only Baby SPF 30, an SPF 15, SPF 30 and SPF 40 product.  I also appreciated the products are non-comedogenic, vegan formulated, paraben-free, phthalate free, nano particle free, artificial fragrance free, non-eye irritating, not tested on animals, made in the United States and highly rated by the Environmental Working Group.

The kids and I tested the sunscreen through sweat, swimming and sun. It didn't have the greasy feeling a number of sunscreens do, and while if we weren't careful in rubbing it in we were a bit whitish, we didn't come home with a sunburn.

While it was a bit more than what I've typically paid for sunscreens in the past, Block Island Organics gave me the freedom from worry about whether my children would be sunburnt and about what I was putting on their skin.