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Microprocessing
Dangerous DIY Sunscreen Recipes Are Spreading on Pinterest
Misplaced concerns about chemicals in over-the-counter sunscreens are fueling a new problem on social media
In Microprocessing, columnist Angela Lashbrook aims to improve your relationship with technology every week. Microprocessing goes deep on the little things that define your online life today, to give you a better tomorrow.
Everyone’s trying to make a buck on alternative and all-natural remedies these days.
Sephora launched a “Clean at Sephora” category in 2018, aiming to help the increasing number of customers who are afraid of chemicals like parabens and phthalates to find products without them. Consumers are buying vitamins and supplements in record numbers, despite evidence that they’re ineffective for most people. And, of course, vaccine hesitancy is becoming a massive public health concern, with the World Health Organization naming it one of its top 10 biggest risks to global health.
New research, published May 20 in the journal Health Communication, shows how this trend is extending to people’s sunscreen habits — and maybe even putting people at increased risk for skin cancer. The study looked at how people share information about homemade or do-it-yourself sunscreen on Pinterest, and found that nearly 95% of pins about homemade sunscreen portrayed it positively, and a full 68% of the pins recommended recipes for DIY sunscreen that didn’t even work.
Lara McKenzie, a principal investigator at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and one of the study’s authors, says she and her co-authors were interested in studying Pinterest specifically because of how many parents use the platform. She says that, as a parent herself, “I understand the movement and wanting to provide the best for your kids and to not give them things that are harmful or dangerous or hazardous,” but that, in fact, relying on homemade sunscreen puts a child more at risk than whatever potential dangers people think lurk in sunscreen chemicals.
“It’s really scary because what’s at risk here at best is a really bad sunburn, but at worst is the possibility of skin…
