Background: The use of sunscreen products has grown considerably in the last few decades because sunscreen products considered as one of the most important ways of skin protection against UV rays by different mechanisms such as reflecting, absorbing, or scattering. Excess expose to UV causes sunburn, early skin aging, and skin cancers.
Objective: This review aimed to review and compare prominent in vivo sun protection factor (SPF) determination protocols and investigate their approach in test criteria. Finally, this can help skin care specialists to choose the comprehensive SPF determination protocol.
Methods: Four current SPF determination protocols including ISO 24444, AS/NZS 2604:2012, CEN 2006, and FDA 2011 were selected and compared to each other.
Results and conclusions: Despite the similarity of the test method among these protocols, there are some obvious differences in test criteria which results in a better performance in the individual steps of the test process for each of these methods.
Keywords: in vivo; sun protection factor; sunscreen; ultraviolet.
© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.