Banana Boat sunscreen may ignite on your skin: Flammable chemicals pose health risk

Saturday, October 27, 2012 by: PF Louis
Tags: sunscreen, Banana Boat, flammable chemicals

(NaturalNews) From the mid-1950s throughout the reminder of the 20th century, UFO stories were the bizarre news scoops that were common in magazines and newspapers.

The UFO sightings overshadowed even more bizarre incidents of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) that arose during that same period and usually appeared in less prominent magazines and tabloids.

Around 200 were reported. Just like the UFO sightings, most of them were explained away by rational explanations that often fell short of explaining the incident away.

Sure, many of the victims of suspected SHC were older people who may have suffered a heart attack and died, thus enabling them to remain seated in their easy chairs or lying in bed while their bodies were consumed by flames and burned to ashes.

But the intense heat required to burn a human body completely to ashes while the immediate enclosed surroundings remained untouched by fire or heat remains an unsolved mystery. These incidents, or at least reports of them seem to have vanished.

But incidents of spontaneous combustion remain possible, thanks to chemicals that are used in skin and hair products, as well as in various antiseptic cleaning wipes.

Better living through chemistry (an old Dupont slogan)

An October 2012 Reuters article reports the recall by Energizer Holdings, Inc. of their Banana Boat Ultra-Mist sunscreen products because of inflammatory responses. Not just irate, but literally burned customers.

It seems the sunscreen that's sprayed on is flammable before it fully dries and can be easily ignited by a nearby flame or spark. Four burn incidents were reported in the U.S. and one in Canada.

Imagine a Fourth of July outdoor grill party with the kids running around with sparklers, while mom and dad, concerned about those mainstream reports of getting skin cancer from sunshine, spray on a heavy dose of either Banana Boat Sport SPF 30 or 50.

Then that sunscreen liquid is so heavy it doesn't dry soon enough to avoid sparks from the charcoals or sparklers. We could have a modern day spontaneous human combustion incident witnessed by many.

To be fair, EHI has recalled those products with their quality control attention on the spray nozzles. They think that the nozzles allow too much sun screen to get sprayed on, thus taking too long to completely dry.

But after those nozzles are fixed, what if someone decides to spray on a lot more because of those bogus horror stories from dermatologists? Anyway, it's not just spray-on sunscreens that are of concern.

A recent study from an independent source revealed that some hair sprays are very flammable after they dry on the hair. That study was performed by Chemical Accident Reconstruction Services, Inc. in Tucson, AZ.

The founder and head of this group, Dr. Michael Fox, PhD, offers fire and explosion investigative services as expert witnesses for legal actions and insurance claims regarding chemical fires and explosions.

They've handled cases of hair spray on hair fires where burning hair, burned scalps and other flesh as the burning hair dropped away. (EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS SENTENCE DOESN'T MAKE A LOT OF SENSE TO ME) Most cases involved women, but one teenage male had an incident as well.

Another case handled by this group involved an insect repellent with a high concentration of DEET that ignited while on a claimant's skin while burning leaves.

Most Natural News readers know the sun-skin cancer paradigm is bogus, and using natural, non-toxic skin products is the only way to go.

If ever in doubt about flammability of what a good friend or relative is using from the "better living through chemistry" suppliers, material safety data sheets (MSDS) are available via a massive online directory. (http://www.ilpi.com/msds/)

By the way, flammable and inflammable are interchangeable terms. An MSDS will show the combustible temperatures of chemicals as well as other hazards in just about every product on the planet.

An interesting sidebar to the 200 reported spontaneous human combustion (SHC) cases: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) covers a short section on spontaneous combustion occurring from internal, low level oxidation. They referenced only inorganic or non-human organic materials. But maybe, hmmm...

Sources for this article include:

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28878

http://www.reuters.com

http://www.helvemed.com/en/docs/MSDSSURFACEWIPES.pdf

http://www.chemaxx.com/index.htm

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/flammable-versus-inflammable.aspx

http://www.nfpa.org/index.asp?cookie_test=1