Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide Sunscreens: What 24 Labels Contain

How to read a mineral sunscreen label

Look at the Active ingredients line of the Drug Facts box, not the front of the pack. A mineral sunscreen lists zinc oxide, titanium dioxide or both there, each with a percentage; any other name on that line is a chemical filter, which makes the product a hybrid. Iron oxides, the pigments in tinted formulas, sit among the inactive ingredients because they are not UV filters. Front-of-pack wording can mislead: EltaMD UV Pure's listing calls it a zinc oxide formula, and its label lists 5.5% titanium dioxide alongside 10.0% zinc oxide.

Zinc only, or zinc and titanium. The two minerals cover different parts of the UV range. On its own, zinc oxide covers UVB, UVA II and most of UVA I; its absorption falls away across the last stretch of UVA I, about 385 to 400 nm. Titanium dioxide is primarily a UVB filter, with partial UVA coverage. A 2025 review of the two minerals puts the pairing plainly: titanium dioxide mostly absorbs in the UVB range, zinc oxide interacts with both UVB and UVA, and the combination enables broad-spectrum sunscreens.

What the percentages mean. Each figure is how much of the product that mineral makes up; a few labels add "w/w", by weight. The most a sunscreen may contain is 25% of each mineral in the US, the EU and Canada, and the EU and Canada count nano and non-nano forms together toward that limit. Australia caps titanium dioxide at 25% and sets no maximum for zinc oxide. Japan sets no cap for either, because neither appears on its list of UV absorbers. The highest single figure in the table is 24.1%.

Proposed, not final. In the US, both minerals are listed in the FDA's sunscreen monograph, M020, at up to 25%. The FDA proposed both as generally recognized as safe and effective (GRASE) in 2019, re-proposed that in 2021, and has not finalized it.

Sources: Smijs TG, Pavel S. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreens: focus on their safety and effectiveness. Nanotechnology, Science and Applications. 2011;4:95-112. PMC3781714. Araki S, Baby A. Cosmetics. 2025;12(2):77 (full reference below). Limits from the FDA monograph M020 and proposed order OTC000008, EU Regulation 1223/2009 Annex VI, the Health Canada sunscreen monograph, the Australian Permissible Ingredients Determination and Japan's Standards for Cosmetics, as recorded in our UV filter dataset.

Why more zinc does not mean a higher SPF

SPF is a property of the finished product. It is defined by how much more UV skin can take before it reddens with the sunscreen on than without it, so a label's SPF is the result of testing that whole formula on skin. The percentages tell you what the formula is built from, not the number it reached.

So use the label to see which minerals a product relies on, and the labeled SPF, which is what was measured, to compare protection. Our zinc oxide and zinc and titanium combination pages set out the lab data in full.

Non-nano on the label

Most labels in the table give each mineral's name and percentage and nothing about particle size. Five make a particle claim. Thinkbaby prints "non-nano mineral" on its FDA label. Raw Elements lists "non-nano zinc oxide" in its Amazon ingredient panel, and its FDA label carries a "non nano" badge. Badger's label prints "uncoated zinc oxide" and "clear zinc"; "non-nano" appears only in the typed Drug Facts text of its FDA filing, not on the label artwork. EltaMD UV Skin Recovery's carton and MDSolarSciences' listing describe "micronized zinc oxide". We record those claims as the brands make them; we have not tested particle size. The other 19 say nothing either way, which is why the column reads "not stated" rather than "nano".

In the EU and Canada, nano and non-nano forms count together toward the same 25% limit, and Canada bars nano forms from aerosol, spray and loose-powder products. For what the skin-penetration studies found, see nano mineral sunscreens.

How we checked

We started from the mineral sunscreens already listed on this site and the best-known mineral sunscreens on Amazon US, kept only products whose active ingredients are zinc oxide, titanium dioxide or both, and read each label at the source: the FDA-filed label on DailyMed, the Amazon US ingredient panel, or both. On DailyMed we read the label images as well as the typed text sections: the typed text dropped two particle claims and rounded two percentages, and where the two differ the table follows the printed label. Percentages are printed as the label gives them; where an Amazon panel was incomplete, rounded or left out the percent signs, we used the FDA label. The mineral mix comes from the active ingredients only. Prices are left off on purpose — they change daily.

Left out on purpose: a sunscreen whose FDA label and Amazon panel give different zinc oxide percentages; a sport lotion whose newest FDA label adds a chemical filter; a lotion sold as a "new" formula we could not match to any FDA label; hybrids that pair zinc oxide with a chemical filter; and two products whose namesakes measured below their labeled SPF in independent tests we report on our product pages, Neutrogena Sheer Zinc Dry-Touch and Australian Gold Botanical Mineral Lotion. Most tinted mineral sunscreens are in our separate list of tinted sunscreens with iron oxide, with the iron oxides each label names.