You thought the hardest decision you had to make about your son’s penis was over circumcision? Add the use of sunscreen to the list.

According to Chicago Healers, the chemicals found in many sunscreens are chemically similar to the hormone estrogen.

While a little less aggression can be good to temper male hormones, unnecessary exposure to estrogen can cause smaller penises and breast development in males. Girls can also experience detrimental effects including: early puberty and uterine fibroid tumors. The active ingredient, oxybenzone, also increases the ability for additional contaminants to cross the epidermis.

The simplest way to minimize ruining your child’s experience of full-on raging hormones is to avoid oxybenzone. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control released results from a 2008 study indicating 97 percent of Americans are contaminated with the widely-used ingredient (lip balms, conditioners, lipsticks, cosmetics to name a few). Chemicals that work similar to oxybenzone include:

>>Benzophenones (dixoybenzone)

>>PABA and PABA esters (ethyl dihydroxy propyl PAB, glyceryl PABA, p-aminobenzoic acid, padimate-O or octyl dimethyl PABA)

>>Cinnamates (cinoxate, ethylhexyl p-methoxycinnamate, octocrylene, octyl methoxycinnamate)

>>Salicylates (ethylhexyl salicylate, homosalate, octyl salicylate)

>>Digalloyl trioleate

>>Menthyl anthranilate

>>Avobenzone (butyl-methyoxydibenzoylmethane)

Take heart, your children won’t become cancerous bacon slices under the sun rays, there are plenty of oxybenzone-free options:

>>All Terrain (AquaSport, TerraSport, KidSport)

>>Nature’s Gate Mineral Kid’s block

>>Beyond Coastal Natural Sunscreen for Kids

>>Aubrey Organics Natural Sun Sunscreen

>>Lavera Sensitive Baby and Children Sunscreen

>>Banana Boat Natural Reflect Kids and Baby Sunscreen Lotion

>>Burt’s Bees Chemical-Free Sunscreen

Now that we’ve side stepped yet another male parts issue in the Simms household, maybe I can get a respite until the demonstration of how to correctly use a condom (cringe).

ShaMecha Simms can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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Editor: Kate Bartolotta

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