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The Twentieth Century and Beyond
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
The first sunscreens were invented in the 1920s and 1930s, and the answer to the question “who invented the sunscreen” varies depending on whether we are discussing effective sunscreen or any substance purported to protect the skin from the sun.23 In 1932, H.A. Milton Blake of Australia developed a product containing phenyl salicylate (salol). Eugene Schueler, the French founder of L'Oreal, produced a “filtering oil” called Ambre Solaire in 1936. Benjamin Green invented a sun-protective substance in 1944 to protect WWII soldiers from the glaring Pacific sun. Not one of these products was highly protective. The first effective sunscreen was invented by the Austrian Franz Greiter in 1946. It was called Glacier Crème, and Greiter famously thought of inventing it after suffering a sunburn while hiking in the Alps. In 1962, Greiter introduced the concept of sun protective factor (SPF), which is defined as the ratio of UVB solar energy required to cause a sunburn on protected skin versus unprotected skin. Para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) was invented in 1943 and was increasingly used in sunscreens developed in the 1950s and 1960s until it was shown in the 1980s that it might actually increase UV damage. The first UVA sunscreen (avobenzone) was invented in the 1980s. More and more chemical sunscreens have been invented over the last 50 years, but recently many of these substances, such as oxybenzone, have come under scrutiny for safety concerns as it relates to their absorption into the body through the skin. Sunscreens containing zinc oxide and titanium are the most effective and are generally considered the safest. In general, sunscreens protect against the development of melanoma and SCC, but not BCC; they are also the first line of defense against the harmful rays that age the skin of the face.
Milton Blake, sunscreen pioneer
Published in Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, 2023
Blake was undoubtedly the major Australian figure in the early years (1920s and 1930s) of sunscreen development, but it is worth noting that he was not the only Australian researcher in the field in that era. In the 1930s, an unnamed dermatologist affiliated with the Queensland Radium Institute in the Australian state of Queensland made a 10% dispersion of phenyl salicylate in paraffin for use as a sunscreen in the institute’s cancer patients.7 Apart from the omission of Blake, the article by Drissi et al provides an excellent overview of the history of sunscreen, with due recognition of sunscreen pioneers.