Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen Review 2023

The Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50+ was the best value pick in my larger tested review of sunscreens for babies. Ahead, learn more about the gentle formula and why it's the top affordable option.

Baby skin is soft, thin and super susceptible to sunburns. That's why after 6 months of age you need to protect it with the best sunscreen for babies, although shade and protective clothing should still be your first lines of defense. You want a baby sunscreen that's SPF 30 or higher, broad-spectrum and water-resistant. It should contain only the mineral active ingredients zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide. And putting it on shouldn't be such a hassle that it makes you want to scrap the whole outing.

The Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen is my best value pick because it felt soft and smooth and ... [+] never greasy or oily.

I rigorously tested 12 best-selling baby sunscreens to find one that I’d feel safe using on my own daughter (and, in a pinch, on myself). The Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen SPF 50+ is my best value pick because it felt as soft and smooth as my top overall pick from La Roche-Posay. It also felt less greasy and oily than competitors that cost several dollars more per fluid ounce. Read on to learn why I think it's the best affordable baby sunscreen.

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Type: Mineral | Price per fluid ounce: $2.55 | Active ingredients: Titanium Dioxide 8%, Zinc Oxide 10% | Water Resistant: 80 minutes | Scent: None

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Along with Aveeno (which I eliminated for its scent), the Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen is the least expensive option I tested, yet it has a luxe finish that rivals pricier options. Because I had tried other Blue Lizard sunscreens before and found them to be greasy, I was pleasantly surprised by how this one felt. "Comes out as a thin lotion, but it goes on very smooth with a very slight white cast that shows you where it is," I wrote. "Not greasy or oily at all. Dries very quickly. Feels soft and not sticky at all."

I decided to test baby sunscreens for dripping because I could imagine that being an inconvenience when putting it on my daughter. A cream that's just thick enough is easier to apply since it won't run but also doesn't require a ton of rubbing. Blue Lizard is on the thinner side—it did drip off my arm—but not so much that it was a dealbreaker. It scored 5s in every category except for drip and initial feel, but those did not affect its performance or comfort in the long run. After it dried, it felt nicer than all but two of the baby sunscreens I tried, which also cost much more.

For baby sunscreen, a cream that's just thick enough is easier to apply since it won't run but also ... [+] doesn't require a ton of rubbing.

Even naturally derived fragrance can irritate sensitive skin. And products that are "unscented" can still have an unpleasant odor (fragrance is often used to mask other odors. Take it away, and…yuck). I noted that Blue Lizard, unlike other fragrance-free baby sunscreens I tested, truly had no discernable scent. I preferred it to our other pick that cost just $3 per fluid ounce from Aveeno because that one had a slight floral scent.

The highest level of water resistance in the sunscreens I tested was 80 minutes, compared with 40 minutes or none at all. The Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen is water-resistant up to 80 minutes like our other winners from La Roche-Posay and Hello Bello.

This sunscreen netted a nearly perfect score in my testing, only falling short on my drip test and its initial feel. That's because it has a slightly runnier consistency than most other contenders. I found that a thicker cream could be less messy to apply and easier to smooth over skin; however, it could also go wrong and feel oily or greasy a long time after you apply it. Blue Lizard was a bit more liquid-y, but it dried quickly. I didn't notice any oily or greasy residue or a white cast—just soft, smooth skin, the way I did with my best baby sunscreen overall from La Roche-Posay.

The Blue Lizard Baby Sunscreen has a slightly runnier consistency than most other contenders.

At $3 per fluid ounce, it's my favorite cost effective option. Note: It has a slightly lower but still quite good score from the EWG regarding the safety of its ingredients, with a 3 compared with the 2 that our best overall winner and many other contenders rate (the best rating is 1 on the EWG scale).

I cross-referenced the criteria my experts laid out with the products I had gathered based on my own research to narrow the field to 12 contenders. I squeezed a dollop of each one onto my inner elbow, where my skin is the most sensitive and baby-like. (Note: I am very sensitive and tend to react to products.) I flipped my arm over to see if each one dripped, then I rubbed it into my skin and gave it a score for how it felt from 1 (greasy or oily) to 5 (better than before). I then waited for it to dry and scored the finish the same way. Finally, I sealed the bottle or tube in a zip-top plastic bag and tossed it in my daughter's diaper bag to check if it would spill.

Women's health and wellness has been an expertise of mine in my 10 years as a reporter and editor for publications like O, The Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Allure and more. Personally, I’ve been on the hunt for the best baby products, including sunscreen, since I had my daughter a year ago.

To research this story, I shared my questions with experts in skincare and children's health: dermatologist Dr. Steven Q. Wang, chair of the Skin Cancer Foundation photobiology committee and director of dermatologic oncology at the Hoag Family Cancer Institute, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, in Newport Beach, California; Michelle Wong, PhD, founder of Lab Muffin Beauty Science, a cosmetic chemist based in Sydney, Australia; and Dr. Adeena Rosenblatt, MD, PhD, a pediatric dermatologist at UChicago's Comer Children's Hospital. I polled my local parents’ Facebook group and friends and Forbes staffers who are parents on their favorite baby sunscreens, and I searched the bestsellers at Whole Foods and Amazon, noting rave reviews and consistent praise in the comments.

Yes, all of the dermatologists we spoke to for this story recommended using mineral sunscreen versus chemical for babies. Mineral ingredients are less likely to irritate a baby's very sensitive skin, and they provide immediate sun protection. Because babies are so small, anything you put on their skin has more of an impact than it would for an adult. "Babies have a larger body surface area compared to their total area," says Rosenblatt. "Whenever you’re putting anything on the skin, there is going to be more of it getting absorbed into the body than it would be in you or me, or even in an older kid." If you’re concerned about chemicals and absorption, that's a good argument in favor of mineral sunscreens. And just the decreased likelihood of an allergic reaction is reason enough for us.

Yes, Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen is water-resistant. The SPF 50+ formula I tested is water resistant for up to 80 minutes. The SPF 30 version provides 40 minutes of water resistance.

The Blue Lizard Baby contains the same ingredients list as Blue Lizard Sensitive. They both contain the same sun-blocking active ingredients: titanium dioxide (8%) and zinc oxide (10%). Neither contains fragrance, and both are water-resistant for up to 80 minutes. The rest of the ingredients list also looks identical. Typically ingredients are listed on a product label in order of the quantity the product contains, so whatever ingredient is most plentiful is listed first. We don't know for sure if the two sunscreens contain exactly the same amount of each ingredient, but because their ingredients are listed in the same order they seem to be very similar.

Yes, the same Blue Lizard Baby Mineral Sunscreen formula is available in both a stick and spray if you prefer one of those to a lotion. We chose the lotion because our experts recommend it to get the fullest coverage. Rosenblatt always tells her patients to use a cream or lotion for the first application because you’re more likely to miss spots when you use a spray or stick. She prefers to reapply the same cream or lotion later in the day as needed, but says that using a stick or a spray is always better than no sunscreen at all.