Quick Summary:

Date Tested: 8/1/2023

In this Coppertone Sport Mineral SPF 50 sunscreen spray review, I evaluate a sunscreen spray which protects well enough against harmful UV, albeit being a bit foamy upon dispensing.

The Coppertone Sport Mineral SPF 50 sunscreen spray is a mineral based formulation containing Zinc Oxide at 24.08% concentration (I have no idea what “To deliver” means which is written next to the active ingredient on the product bottle). I don’t believe I’ve seen a % of mineral active ingredient this high, so this was an intriguing sunscreen for me to test.

The Coppertone Sport Mineral SPF 50 sunscreen spray filtered UVA by 97.90%, reduced UVB by 94.77%, and blocked total UVI by 97.73%. Typically a strong SPF 50 will test in the 95-99% range of UVI reduction. This spray was not a slouch!

Coppertone Sport Mineral SPF 50 sunscreen spray characteristics at a glance:

• Voted Most Trusted Sunscreen Brand by American Shoppers Based on the 2020 BrandSpark American Trust Study.
  
• Viscosity is “Foamy” (I know, I know, not a viscosity description) but medium/low, -good when applied to the slide
  

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Coppertone Sport Mineral SPF 50 sunscreen spray UV blocking test results

Ultraviolet light quick reference:

UVA: The Ultraviolet wavelength from 315nm – 400nm. The “Aging UV light” – Causes wrinkles.
UVB: The Ultraviolet wavelength from 280nm – 315nm. The “Bad UV light” – Causes skin cancer.
UVI: The global sun UV index. The more a sunscreen can reduce the level of UVI, the better.

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UV test results:

Ultraviolet sensor readings:

Want to know more about how I test sunscreen? Head here to read about the details.

Testing notes:

This sunscreen was interesting to test. In order to prepare a slide sample of a spray version of sunscreen, I shake the bottle for about a minute and then dispense the spray in order to clear the inner siphon tube of formula which may not have been agitated and mixed properly from the shaking (about 30s of spraying). Afterwards, I spray the sunscreen onto a spoon and take a sunscreen sample from that. When this spray was dispensed onto the spoon, it resembled a foam, or a whipped lotion with lots of air trapped within. The prepared sunscreen sample did look OK though, albeit with some visible bubbles trapped in the formula. After about 10 minutes testing, the sunscreen began to dry out and create areas of the sunscreen layer without any UV filtering ingredients.

After the 2 hour test was complete, the slide sample looked as pictured (above). Being that there was a portion of the slide with no real coverage of active ingredient where UV light passes through the slide sample, the UVI blocking ability was around 29%. I tested the sunscreen a second time, and while the sample showed the same amount of drying out after the 2 hour test, it did not dry out over the UV business portion of the microscope slide.

Given the propensity of this sunscreen to evaporate unevenly, I am not sure I would recommend this spray unless it was followed up by hand spreading after dispensing. It does however protect rather well if the sunscreen dries in a manner which manifests itself as an even and uniform layer of active ingredient. I assume the difference in the slide applied sunscreen and one that is applied to the body, is that one is advised to further spread the applied sunscreen by hand which may mitigate the inconsistent layer left due to evaporation.