Most sunscreen-decoding tools on the internet sit in one of two camps. Camp one screams that anything with avobenzone is poisoning your endocrine system. Camp two is a brand affiliate page with a checklist that conveniently approves whatever the site sells. Dieux Sun-Screener is the rare third option: an actual reference tool, written by cosmetic chemists, that explains what each UV filter is and what it does without trying to sell you fear or product.
What Sun-Screener is and isn’t
It is a clean searchable database of UV filters, UV boosters, and the regulatory split between the US and the EU on each one. You can type or click any filter, Tinosorb S, octinoxate, zinc oxide, the photostable newer ones, and get a short, plain-English explanation of mineral versus chemical versus hybrid classification, what wavelength range it covers, and whether it is approved under EU cosmetic regulation, US OTC monograph, or both. There is a glossary for UVA versus UVB, what a UV booster actually does, and the photostability question that the chemical-versus-mineral safety debate keeps getting wrong.
It is not a sunscreen rating system. It will not tell you that Sunscreen X is better than Sunscreen Y. It will not give you a single SPF recommendation. Formulation matters as much as the filters listed, and Sun-Screener correctly stays out of that judgment.
Who it’s for
European readers who keep seeing US sunscreens praised by US bloggers and want to understand why those filters are not on their shelves. American readers who want to understand why Korean and French sunscreens feel better and what filters they are missing. Anyone whose dermatologist mentioned avobenzone and they nodded as if they knew what that was. Skincare diary keepers cataloging a new SPF before adding it to their PM routine. Pregnant readers building a filter shortlist.
The features that matter
The US-versus-EU column is the one nobody else does this cleanly. American sunscreen filter approvals are stuck in a 1999 OTC monograph; the EU has approved more than a decade’s worth of photostable next-generation filters since then. Sun-Screener shows that split per filter, not as a polemic. You can look at Tinosorb S, see EU approved, not approved in US, and understand in one screen why your Korean sunscreen is more elegant than your CVS one.
The UV booster section matters because boosters keep being treated as filters in casual conversation and they are not. They extend or stabilize a filter’s coverage rather than absorbing UV themselves. Sun-Screener gives them their own category, which is correct, and which I have not seen anywhere else outside cosmetic-chemist trade publications.
The contrarian take
The tool’s biggest contribution is what it refuses to do. There is no safe-versus-unsafe badge. There is no toxicity score. There is no scary skull icon next to chemical filters. The cosmetic-chemist consensus is that the well-formulated modern chemical and hybrid filters are safer for daily use than the fear-marketing internet implies, and Sun-Screener is the first consumer tool I have used that actually reflects that consensus in its interface choices. If you arrived at the page expecting validation for an oxybenzone panic, you will leave reframed. That is the point.
Real-world test
I ran fourteen sunscreens through Sun-Screener over a single afternoon, including three Korean SPFs my American friends keep asking me to mule back from Seoul. In eleven of the fourteen cases I learned at least one thing I did not know about a filter I had been using for months. The most useful lookup was Uvinul A Plus in a French Bioderma I have used since 2022: confirmed photostable, paired with Tinosorb M for UVA coverage, both EU-approved and neither available in US-market sunscreens. That single lookup explained why my American substitutes had felt worse for years.
How it stacks against INCIDecoder and EWG Skin Deep
INCIDecoder is broader; it covers every cosmetic ingredient, not just UV filters, and it does not separate UV filters by regulatory region. Useful for general ingredient lookups, weaker for a sunscreen-specific question. EWG Skin Deep is the loud alternative, and I will not recommend it for sunscreen decisions: its hazard scores reflect a methodology that has been criticized by cosmetic chemists and dermatologists for over a decade. If you only want one sunscreen-specific lookup, Sun-Screener wins on accuracy and on tone. If you want a general ingredient reference, pair it with INCIDecoder.
Frequently asked questions
Is the tool actually free? Yes. No account required, no email gate.
Does Dieux push their own sunscreen inside the tool? No. The tool is brand-agnostic; you cannot buy anything from inside it.
Why does the US have fewer filters approved? Sunscreen is regulated as an over-the-counter drug in the US, not a cosmetic, which is the slowest possible regulatory category. The EU regulates sunscreens as cosmetics, which approves new filters faster.
Does the tool tell me which filters are pregnancy-safe? Not directly, but you can cross-reference with your obstetrician’s guidance. Mineral filters (zinc oxide, titanium dioxide) remain the conservative pregnancy default.
What about reef-safe claims? Sun-Screener focuses on regulatory and functional context rather than environmental claims. Reef-safety guidance varies by jurisdiction and is a separate evaluation.
Once you have a filter education, the harder questions are about how much product to use and when. The Elelaf piece on how to apply sunscreen properly covers the two-finger-rule question that wrecks more SPF protection than filter choice ever does. The mineral vs chemical sunscreen comparison goes deeper on the dichotomy Sun-Screener gently dismantles. And the indoor SPF question is worth reading before you put a chemical filter on a face that will not see daylight all day. For more in this category, our SPF tag hub collects the rest.
Sources
European Commission, Cosmetic Products Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Annex VI list of allowed UV filters. US Food and Drug Administration, OTC sunscreen monograph and proposed rule, 2019.