Can you use a chemical sunscreen when you're pregnant?

For the first time in decades, yes, but only one chemical filter in the world has earned it.

If you're pregnant, you've been told to use a mineral sunscreen: zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, and nothing else. That advice is correct. Zinc and titanium are genuinely safe. They sit on top of the skin, reflect UV away, and don't soak in, so there's no question of them getting into your bloodstream or reaching your baby. This was never a rough rule of thumb, those two really are the safe ones.

Why only those two?

Because for decades, they were the only two sunscreen filters the FDA granted its highest safety status: GRASE I "generally recognised as safe and effective." Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide were in. Every chemical filter you've heard of, including oxybenzone, octinoxate, and avobenzone, was not. Those are allowed on shelves, but the FDA never confirmed them as safe and effective the way it did the minerals, and several carry real concerns: they absorb into the skin, and some may affect hormones. So "use a mineral sunscreen in pregnancy" really meant "use one of the only two filters that cleared the top safety bar."

And here's the part that surprises people: it isn't only the old chemical filters that fall short. Even the newer, more sophisticated ones, the high-tech filters Europe has used for years have never earned GRASE I either. For a very long time, the top tier had exactly two names in it, and both were minerals.

What just changed

In June 2026, that list grew for the first time in about 26 years. Bemotrizinol became the third filter ever to earn GRASE I and the first and only chemical filter to do it.

That's what makes it genuinely historic. It's technically a chemical filter, but it behaves like a mineral one: it's a large, very stable molecule, so it barely penetrates the skin, and it carries none of the hormone concerns that shadow the older chemicals. It didn't get a shortcut or a special pass. It met the exact same standard zinc and titanium met, the standard no other chemical filter, old or new, has managed to reach.

So the safe list went from two to three. And for the first time, a chemical sunscreen can honestly sit beside the minerals as a pregnancy-appropriate choice.

Not sure where your current sunscreen stands? Check your sunscreen ingredients with our Sunscreen Ingredient Checker to understand which filters your product contains and how they compare.

Where CHOSEN stands

CHOSEN only ever formulates with GRASE I filters when it comes to sunscreens meant for use in pregnancy. That's the whole rule. We don't use the lower-tier chemicals, and we never have, which is why our entire SAFESCREEN range is built on zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, and bemotrizinol, and nothing else.

And this is where CHOSEN made its own bet, early: NEXGEN has been built on bemotrizinol alone for three years, the only sunscreen in the world to do so based on data from absorption studies. So if you've wanted a sunscreen that feels light and elegant and still clears the very highest safety bar there is, that's Nexgen right here.