with — With the current climate demonizing chemical sunscreens and thus shifting preference to mineral sunscreens, butyloctyl salicylate (BS) is so often used because brands want to launch mineral sunscreens that can be used on a wider range of skin tones. For a true SPF 50+ mineral sunscreen, you’re using 25% zinc oxide and probably a good amount of titanium dioxide in there too, and that’ll give you the nastiest white paste you can imagine. Therefore, boosters like BS allow you to attain decent UV protection while reducing the amount of the insoluble white powders in a mineral-focused formulation to make it a little more appealing for more melanated skin. BS is used so widely because it’s effective. And that’s the other point: it’s used so widely that it also makes no sense to me to hold a single brand accountable for using it when (like I said), the brand itself isn’t aware of its UV-absorbing role in the formulation. So when it comes to wanting to attain a high SPF value, butyloctyl salicylate is an easy and cheap answer. As a raw material, butyloctyl salicylate is classified as an “emollient”. So a brand is receiving a product with mineral filters highlighted in the “drug facts”, and assuming the rest of the ingredients are standard functional ingredients. My only real concern with seeing it in an ingredients list is for individuals who might have a sensitivity to octisalate and thus butyloctyl salicylate if it’s in the ingredients list. There’s actually a small roster of these “emollient” UV-absorbers that are sister ingredients to regulated UV filters, as well as a wider category of ingredients that can absorb UV due to aromatic rings in their molecular structure. I actually did part of my MSc thesis on this topic. On top of these absorbers, there are also things like light scatterers, film formers, dispersing ingredients, and anti-inflammatory/antioxidant ingredients that can further aid in boosting in vivo SPF and UVA-PF/PPD testing values #stitch