Reviews > Health & Safety > Sunscreens > Max Block SPF 30 Sunscreen > Owner Review by Hollis Easter

Max Block SPF 30 Sunscreen - Sunscreens
Owner Review
January 15, 2007

Reviewer Information:

Name: Hollis Easter
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Height: 6' 0" (1.8 m)
Weight: 205 lb (93 kg)
Email address: backpackgeartestATholliseasterDOTcom
City, State, Country: Potsdam, New York, USA
Backpacking Background: I started hiking as a child in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. As a teenager, I hiked my way to an Eagle Scout award. These days, I'm mostly doing day hikes in the mountains. I hope to get back into doing longer trips soon. I'm also learning rock climbing.

I am a midweight backpacker: I don't carry unnecessary gear, but neither do I cut the edges from my maps. I hike in all seasons, at altitudes from sea level to 5,300 ft (1,600 m), and in temperatures from -30 F (-34 C) to 100 F (38 C).

Product Information:

Manufacturer: Personal Care Products, Inc.
Year of manufacture: 2006
URL: none
Listed volume: 4 fl oz (118 mL)
Actual volume: unknown; I don't have a full tube.
Actual weight: 3.2 oz (90 g)
MSRP: $1 US

Product features (from tube):

• Sun Protection Factor of 30
• Aloe vera added
• UVA and UVB protection
• Very water- and sweat-resistant

Active ingredients: Octinoxate 7.5% (sunscreen); Octisalate 5.0% (sunscreen); Oxybenzone 4.0% (sunscreen).

Inactive ingredients: Acrylates/C10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, allantoin, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, carbomer, cocoa (Theobroma cacao) butter, disodium EDTA, DMDM hydantoin, fragrance, methylcellulose, methylparaben, mineral oil, polyethylene, polysorbate 20, propylene glycol, propylparaben, sorbitan oleate, sorbitol, tocopheryl acetate, triethanolamine, water (aqua).

Max Block SPF 30 (hereafter "Max Block") is the sunscreen sold at the Dollar Tree chain of dollar stores in the USA. I bought my tube of it during summer 2006 from the store in Potsdam, New York. It comes in a flexible plastic tube, easily squeezed, closed with a flip-top cap. The tube seems to do a good job of dispensing only as much sunscreen as I want.

To my nose, the dominant aroma of this sunscreen is coconut oil. This intrigues me because coconut oil doesn't appear on the ingredient list—perhaps that's what the "fragrance" entails. I can certainly smell the cocoa butter as well.

Field information:

Hiking locations used: I have used this sunscreen on every hiking or skiing trip I've taken since 2004. Locations are less important than elevations when it comes to sunscreen; I've used it from sea level up to approximately 4,100 ft (1,250 m).

I have also used it while tent camping at bagpipe music camp—I consider this a hiking location because bagpipe camp is held in the woods; I live in a tent for the week I'm there; and classes are often held outdoors.

Non-hiking locations used: this is my normal sunscreen, and it's therefore the one I pick whenever I need sunscreen. Representative activities include gardening, building mortar-less stone walls (hot and sweaty work), and swimming. I have also used it a great deal when performing outdoors: I make part of my living as a professional bagpiper, and so I often need to play weddings, funerals, and competitions outside.

Description of locations: trails and forest bushwhacks, mountains up to 4,100 ft (1,250 m), ski slopes, churchyards, my garden, the beach, etc. Highly varied.

Weather conditions: I use this sunscreen in summer and winter, bright sun and cloudy weather, rain and shine. If I'm planning on being outside for any length of time, I apply this sunscreen.

Comments:

I am someone who gets excited about sunscreen. That's right, folks: sunscreen sets my gears a-whirling. Why? Several reasons:

1. I am very fair-skinned, of British Isles extraction.
2. I was badly sunburned several times when I was younger.
3. I have a larger-than-normal number of pigmented nevi (moles).
4. I have many, many allergies. Contact allergies, environmental allergies, scent allergies, drug allergies: I have them all.

The first three reasons on my list merge into one disheartening fact: I have a higher-than-average risk of developing skin cancer. The fourth reason is the kicker: I'm allergic to a lot of the sunscreens on the market. Sometimes it's their perfumes ("fragrances"/"parfums") that cause the problem; others have added dyes, or simply something in the compound that tweaks my allergies.

Finding a sunscreen that works on my body is important, especially given that my love of the outdoors puts me at greater-than-average risk of ultraviolet light exposure. Factors that matter in my book:

• Smell. I'm very sensitive to scents, and many of them give me migraines. My migraines don't respond well to analgesics, unlike simple headaches, so I try to avoid them.
• Staying power. I tend to sweat a lot, and a sunscreen needs to have Super Glue in its ancestry to stay on me. Sunscreen that runs into my eyes is unacceptable.
• Price. I've found a few higher-end sunscreens that worked well, but that cost approximately $5 per application. Given how often I need sunscreen, their price was prohibitively high.

In my experience, all sunscreens involve compromise somewhere. I have yet to find the Holy Grail of sunscreens, a cheap and odor-free sunscreen that is gentle to my skin and lasts forever. Until I find it, I'll keep using Max Block.

Ingredients and instructions

It has a scent, but it doesn't seriously provoke my allergies. I have noticed that virtually all products have scents, even those labelled "unscented", "fragrance-free", or "hypoallergenic"—it's a natural physical property of things. Onions have a scent, too, even though they don't have Parfum in their ingredients label. Finding scents I can live with is an exercise in trial and error. I've found some scented products that are great for me, and some hypoallergenic products that aggravate my asthma and give me rashes. This sunscreen works with my allergies.

The Max Block has good staying power, and it protects well: I find that I can apply it carefully in the morning, wear it all day without reapplying, and the only places I get burned will be those where I forgot to put sunscreen. Sometimes I add more, just because I'm feeling paranoid, but it really hasn't been necessary.

The sunscreen's taste is inoffensive, which is nice: it lets me protect my lips from sunburn, too. I usually seal the Max Block down with some lip balm, which seems to work well.

A word on feel. When applied to most of my body, this sunscreen seems to absorb very well, and I don't notice it seeming greasy. However, my hands always feel oily after I've used them to apply the sunscreen, and they continue to feel that way until I've wiped them on something. This doesn't bother me, but it is worth mentioning.

I don't know whether Max Block is available from other stores than Dollar Tree. However, Dollar Tree stores are ubiquitous in northern New York, which makes this sunscreen both readily available and very economical.

A few negative points: the scent tends to linger. I suppose this stems naturally from the sunscreen's staying power, but it's something to consider. I don't mind this scent, so it doesn't matter to me.

When I've been wearing this sunscreen, I notice that my skin often feels dirty at the end of the day, as if my pores have collected dirt somehow. To be fair, I'm sweating and working most of the time that I'm wearing sunscreen, so it's difficult to tell whether Max Block is to blame for the dirty feeling. I have not been willing to do a stripe test; the research benefits of dividing my body down the middle, applying sunscreen only to one side, and checking for "dirty" feelings at the end of the day are insufficient to warrant the experiment.

Max Block contains parabens; specifically, it has methylparaben and propylparaben. Parabens are chemicals used as preservatives, and they're extremely common in the cosmetics industry. Some people worry that they may be carcinogenic. I've done my own reading on the subject, and have reached my own compromise. For me, the benefits of using this sunscreen outweigh the potential risks—I'm making the value judgment that sun-caused skin cancer is more likely to kill me than paraben-produced cancer is, and that protecting myself against the sun is more important.

The flip-top lid of the tube has been trustworthy so far, but it could theoretically pop open. When I'm backpacking, I carry the tube inside a plastic bag, just for peace of mind.

I did not test the quantity of sunscreen in the tube. It seems to last a long time; for $1 US, I am willing to let that be enough.

Summary:

I use Max Block all the time. I was looking for sunscreen that didn't give me a migraine, that protected well, stayed on, and didn't clean out my wallet. Max Block is the best I've found.

pluses:

• doesn't seriously provoke my allergies even though it has a scent
• inexpensive
• readily available
• protects well on a single application—without reapplication
• doesn't taste bad—works fine as lip protectant
• doesn't feel oily on skin
• tube is easy to squeeze, and dispenses only as much as I want

minuses:

• scent tends to linger
• can leave a greasy feeling on hands, unlike on other parts
• contains parabens
• skin seems to collect dirt, although that may be from sweat
• flip-top lid has been trustworthy so far, but could pop open

Respectfully submitted by Hollis Easter.

Reviews > Health & Safety > Sunscreens > Max Block SPF 30 Sunscreen > Owner Review by Hollis Easter