We Went on the Wellness Mama Podcast to Talk Sunscreen

A little while back, Rachel and I sat down with our friend Katie Wells — Wellness Mama — to talk about the thing we've become a little obsessed with: what's actually in your sunscreen, and what it's doing to you and to the water you swim in.

We've known Katie for years, so when she asked to have us on, we were thrilled to bring some of our sunscreen knowledge to her audience. Katie was a journalist in her past life, so she did her research beforehand — which always makes a podcast more interesting. She's also a little skeptical of sunscreen in general, so it was fun to have that conversation with her too.

Our interview turned into two episodes, because there was too much to cram into one. If you'd rather listen than read, both are embedded below. If you want the short version, here's what we got into.

Part 1 — The myths, and what the studies actually say

Katie and I have both watched the same strange thing happen: the internet has turned sunscreen into a villain. "It's toxic." "It causes cancer." "It's not natural." Some of that comes from a real place — a lot of conventional sunscreen genuinely isn't something you'd want soaking into you every day. But the conclusion a lot of people are drawing — quit sunscreen entirely — is the wrong one.

So in the first episode we pulled it apart: which fears are founded, which aren't, the difference between chemical and mineral filters, and what the research on skin cancer actually says versus what a 30-second video claims.

Part 2 — The part nobody talks about: the ocean

The second episode is the one closest to why Salt+Blue exists in the first place. Most of the sunscreen conversation stops at your skin. It shouldn't. Some of the things we covered with Katie:

• The U.S. National Ocean Service estimates that up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen ends up in coral reef areas around the world every year (a figure that traces back to a 2008 study in Environmental Health Perspectives).
• Why Hawaii banned oxybenzone — and how, once visitors dropped off during 2020, the coral in Hanauma Bay actually started to recover. Real damage, real reversal.
• Here's the one that surprises people: you don't have to be in the ocean for this to matter. When a chemical filter like avobenzone hits chlorinated pool water, it breaks down into a whole range of byproducts — chlorinated phenols and acetophenones among them — that studies have found to be more toxic than the filter you started with. So "I only swim in pools" isn't the out people think it is.
• Why "reef safe" is a claim we're legally not allowed to make — and why we say "reef friendly" instead. There's no way to prove a product does zero harm to coral, so the honest word is the one we use. What you actually want to look for on a label is non-nano zinc and the absence of the handful of filters doing the damage.
• Why "non-nano" matters — nanoparticles are small enough to raise real questions about marine harm and absorption, and they're not even fully safe for the people manufacturing them.
• The ingredients we're genuinely excited about — like karanja oil — and why we built the formula to feed the skin, not just block UV.
• The packaging call: we launched in all-aluminum and steel, no plastic, even though it cost more and pushed our launch back. Aluminum is up to 90% recyclable. It was the right call.

One line from Rachel stuck with me, on why we bother doing any of this:

"We're activists. We don't go down the street with signs — we do it through commerce."

That's the whole thing, honestly.

Listen to both episodes

Part 1 — Sunscreen: Myths, Misconceptions and What Studies Actually Say

Open Part 1 on Wellness Mama

Part 2 — The Environmental Cost of Conventional Sunscreens (And Better Alternatives)

Open Part 2 on Wellness Mama

Huge thanks to Katie for having us on — twice. If you don't already follow Wellness Mama, go do that now.

The short version

If you take one thing from either episode: you don't have to choose between protecting your skin and protecting the water. Look for non-nano zinc, skip the chemical filters, and check what the tube is made of while you're at it.

That's exactly what we built Salt+Blue to be.

Shop Salt+Blue BODY Sunscreen

Want to go deeper on the ingredient science? Start with Is Non-Nano Zinc Oxide Safe? What the Science Actually Says.

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Kevin Gianni is the co-founder of salt+blue and Annmarie Skin Care and the author of Kale and Coffee. He's spent more than twenty years researching natural health and personal-care ingredients — reading studies, interviewing experts, and questioning dubious marketing.