The Therapeutic Goods Administration has proposed a major overhaul of how sunscreen gets tested and labelled in Australia, and honestly, it's about time. Here's what's actually on the table, and the slightly chaotic backstory that got us here.
The gap between the label and the lab
Back in September we covered the fallout when a sunscreen manufacturer's SPF50+ claim tested as low as SPF 2.9, landing two brands in the Federal Court. Turns out that wasn't an isolated drama. Consumer group Choice tested 20 popular SPF50 sunscreens last year and found 16 of them didn't meet their advertised rating, including one that returned an SPF of just 4. Nineteen more sunscreens made from the same base formula got pulled from shelves soon after. TGA chief medical adviser Robyn Langham says the regulator's own investigation found "multiple factors that could contribute to low SPF results, not a single cause," which is a very diplomatic way of saying the whole system needed a look.
What's actually changing
The proposed reforms are a genuine rebuild, not a tweak. Brands will need to test the SPF of the finished product, not just the base formula, multiple times before it's allowed to launch, then keep testing periodically over the product's shelf life. Results go to the TGA confidentially before anything hits shelves, which is already more oversight than currently exists, since brands don't have to hand over testing data unless the TGA specifically asks for it. Labs that do the testing will also face proper international accreditation requirements, after an ABC investigation found more than half of the sunscreens that failed had been tested by an overseas lab whose results experts questioned.
The more interesting twist is on the testing method itself. Brands may get the option to test SPF on a plastic plate in a lab rather than on human volunteers, with the TGA pointing to significant variability in the current volunteer based results. In vivo testing (the human kind) sticks around for some formulations and for water resistance claims, so nobody's skin is fully off the hook yet.
Numbers might get a glow up too
The TGA is still weighing changes to the label itself. One option on the table would ditch the SPF number entirely in favour of "low," "medium," "high" and "very high" categories, which feels like either a genuinely sensible simplification or the start of sunscreen aisles sounding like a spice rub. There's also a push for a clearer line between cosmetic sunscreens (some currently claim up to 50+ without a therapeutic listing) and the therapeutic kind, plus a review of manufacturing guidance and ingredient quality requirements.
Why any of this is worth caring about
None of this is really about sunscreen specifically, it's about whether a claim on a label is backed by anything at all. We feel pretty strongly about that one too, which is why we broke down how to actually read an ingredient list instead of just trusting the front of the packet.
Two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime (I'm one of them!), and around 2,000 people die from it every year (no, thanks 😬 ), so an SPF claim that's actually true isn't a minor admin detail - it's life or death. The Cancer Council notes SPF 20 filters about 95 per cent of UVB rays and SPF 50 about 98 per cent, a gap that matters a lot more at scale than it sounds like on paper. And the official advice for a full body application is a precise seven teaspoons, a number specific enough that we're fairly confident nobody has ever measured it out before heading to the beach.
No firm dates have been set. Some changes could land in the short term, others need further consultation and possibly legislative change, per ABC News, 27 October 2026.
A confidential lab report, a plastic test plate and international accreditation, all just to make a number on a bottle lid trustworthy. We're almost relieved that proving what's in one of our bars just means printing the ingredient list in the order it's actually in there. Wild concept, we know.