Several systems have been developed to show the
level of protection that sun lotions offer against UVA radiation. The most
popular of these is the Boot’s Star Rating System. Originally developed
in Australia, but now owned by Boots the Chemists and used on their own
brand sun products and other proprietary high street brands.
This system consists of 5 different
ratings, with 1 star (*) indicating low levels of protection against
UVA radiation, and 5 stars (*****) indicating a high level of UVA
protection.
It should be remembered that this
system measures the level of UVA protection in comparison to the SPF
rating of the product. Therefore, to correctly interpret the UVA
protection a product offers, you need to look at both the Star Rating
and the SPF levels.
Without specialised knowledge, it
is practically impossible to correctly assess the UVA protection of a sun lotion using the Star Rating system. For example whilst products with
the same star-rating offer greater levels of UVA protection with
increasing SPF ratings, a 5 star SPF8 lotion actually offers less UVA
protection than a 3 star SPF15 lotion. For this reason the system has
been generally rejected by scientists and is now used largely as a
marketing tool.
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