Kabana ships domestic orders via USPS First Class or Priority rates based on weight. Rates start at $3.25 and go up to $12.65 for the medium flat rate box that will ship basically anything you want. All shipping rates are actual costs from USPS for postage and will be displayed prior to checkout.

International shipments are carried by USPS International First Class or Priority, also based on weight. Most shipments to Canada go via USPS International First Class and begin at $10.00. Shipments to other parts of the world go via USPS International Priority, beginning at $23.95. All shipping rates are actual costs from USPS for postage.

We also offer both USPS and FedEx Express shipping at checkout – just select whatever option you need. Rates are displayed next to the shipping option.

If you need special express service, we also offer that. Please email service@kabanaskincare.com or call 888 517 0414, we’ll do whatever in our power to accommodate your needs.

If you’re purchasing bulk or wholesale quantities we normally use FedEx Ground or USPS Flat Rate Priority – whichever is most economical for your order.

We normally ship your order quickly! Our typical turnaround time is by the next business day. Generally US customers will receive their order less than 5 business days after it’s placed on the website.

Yes, we ship express and you can select the desired service at checkout.

Kabana ships USPS priority mail to all US addresses for orders 14 ounces or more, this service generally takes 2-3 days. Smaller orders ship USPS First Class which has a similar delivery time.

We do our best to ship by the next day as well, so you receive our wonderful products quickly.

For international orders except to Canada, we ship USPS Plobal Priority, which takes 6 to 10 business days. Canada orders are generally shipped via International First Class as this passes through customs more easily.

We have a comprehensive guarantee policy that can be found here.

Yes, we offer our products under all three business models. We wholesale to both online and brick and mortar retailers. We also offer bulk packaging (quart and gallon pumps) for institutional users. If you’re interested in the private label option, please contact us. For more information, please email wholesale@kabanaskincare.com or call 888 517 0414.

Yes, Kabana uses SSL by directing customers to our payment security provider’s website at checkout. All customer payment information is protected by through SSL encryption.

Yes, we have a couple formulas – they are the Bali Bloc line and are available in Vanilla, Cocoa, and soon Unscented. These formulas are super simple and supremely effective, with 25% non-nano zinc oxide and just 3 other 100% certified organic ingredients,  and is unlike any other sunscreen on the market. Both comply with the Very Water Resistant FDA test, which demands they perform to 80% of the marketed SPF after 80 minutes of water exposure, but these formulas actually perform to 95+% the rated SPF after such exposure so you can feel very secure it’s working even after a long surf or swim session.

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Yes, Green Screen® Organic Sunscreen, and all other Kabana products are safe for use on children.  In fact, Zinc Oxide is the only FDA approved sunscreen active ingredient that is safe for use on babies under the age of 6 months.  Zinc Oxide is also the active ingredient in diaper rash treatments, which puts the ingredient on the most sensitive skin on earth – an inflamed baby’s bottom – a genuine testament to its superb safety and gentleness.

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Heavy metal exposure concerns are rampant, especially online and there are many sites that use sensational scare-mongering to get you to read more. Lead is ubiquitous in our environment, but if exposure risk is low, there’s really no need to be concerned about it.

Zinc Oxide is a naturally occurring mineral (It’s called Zincite) and primary source of zinc metal, which as an ore often contains various other industrial heavy metals. However, the zinc oxide used in sunscreens is a very special and high purity compound, and is not just mined out of the ground. Zinc Oxide used in sunscreens must be of a very high purity – specified by the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), a regulatory body that governs quality of materials used in medicines and cosmetics. Typically such Zinc Oxide is created anew from ultra high purity zinc metal in a specialized oven under extremely tightly controlled temperature and oxygen conditions. This results in Zinc Oxide that is nearly free of heavy metals and designed for use in sunscreens.

The limit for lead in USP Zinc Oxide is 5 ppm. Even at the maximum acceptable limit, which is typically significantly higher than what is actually present in USP Zinc Oxide, the real amount is much less. This is because it’s further diluted in a sunscreen, which reduces the amount present. For example, since our sunscreens are 25% zinc oxide, the actual concentration present in sunscreen even if the Zinc Oxide has the unlikely maximum level (which it never does according to the analysis), would be 1.25 ppm. If it can’t gain entry into your body, the exposure is even less and just not worth the worry.

If you’re really worried about lead exposure, we recommend looking at other sources that may elevate such exposure in ways worthy of concern.

Here are a few common household sources of exposure that are in our opinion much more likely to result in significant lead exposure compared to sunscreen:

Residential soil: The FDA limit for lead in the playground soil your kids enjoy is 400 ppm, 80 times higher than the USP limit. General residential soil is 1200 ppm (240x, 24,000%).

Household water: If you live in a house that was built before 1988, it’s very likely lead solder was used to put your household water supply together. This can leach out of the pipes and into the water you drink and bathe in. Lead exposure from such water may vastly exceed lead levels you’re exposed from all other household items and cosmetics. If you’re very concerned about lead and live in an house built before or around 1988, you should have your water analyzed.

Paint: Houses built prior to 1955 often had lead in paint up to a level of 500,000 ppm (50%) as lead oxide was a cheap and common pigment. Meaningful exposure to such old paint is presently a rare event. In 1977 this was lowered to 600 ppm, and in 2009 to 90 ppm. Keep in mind 90 ppm (18x 5 ppm) is for the paint even for babies’ toys, and if it’s from China, there’s no guarantee any standard at all will be adhered.

Source: cdc.gov

In summary, if you’re worried about heavy metals, it’s important to evaluate the difference between the mere presence of a metal and its concentration vs. the potential level of exposure, as the two are vastly different concerns.

Yes! We disclose all our ingredients on both labels and on our website. Transparency is one of Kabana’s primary business objectives. The “Complete List of Ingredients” tab on each product page contains exactly that, every ingredient in the formula.

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No, we do not use nanoparticles in our products. We are one of the few manufacturers that explicitly states we do not use nanoparticles. Sunscreen manufacturers can be misleading by saying they use micronized particles because nano is still technically in the micron size range. There’s also a difference between ‘micronized’ and ‘micron-sized’ because micronization is a process that grinds larger zinc oxide particles into smaller ones and always results in a significant number of nanoparticles.  Confusing? Unfortunately it is a bit.  The zinc oxide Kabana uses is in the micron-size range, but the particles are produced via a special process to be that size directly, instead of being ground down, and thereby our zinc oxide does not contain ANY nanoparticles.

All useful mineral sunscreens are either in the micron-sized range or nano as anything larger than the micron size becomes the size of fine sand which is useless in a sunscreen preparation and impossible to evenly apply.

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FDA requires sunscreen manufacturers to provide a 2 year shelf life on sunscreen products. This is because petrochemical sunscreen active ingredients degrade with time, heat and sunlight exposure. Zinc oxide however is a mineral, and as a result it never loses its sunscreen activity because being a rock, it cannot degrade as do the carbon-based sunscreen chemicals. As long as you can spread the product on your skin, you’ll be UV protected! Kabana still must put an expiration date on our products to comply with FDA regulations despite the fact that our product’s active ingredient is immune to degradation concerns.

While the Zinc Oxide never becomes ineffective, Green Screen®’s natural and organic formula can eventually oxidize and become rancid. We have not observed this to occur readily since we fortify the formula with sunflower-seed vitamin E, which is an excellent antioxidant, good both for your skin and for preventing rancidity. Zinc Oxide also acts as a preservative, since in addition to it being the best and safest sunscreen on the planet, it is also antimicrobial and antifungal. (And is the number one active ingredient recommended by pediatricians for treating diaper rash. Diaper rash is generally caused by a fungus. Try our Dream Crème Diaper Rash Treatment!)

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Unfortunately the answer to this question is a little complex. Nanoparticles are particles defined as less than 100 nanometers in diameter, or 0.1 micron. Most nanoparticle sunscreens in the marketplace have particle sizes of 15 nanometers or 0.015 micron. Micronized sunscreens are created by grinding larger particle sizes into smaller ones. Typically micronized particles are between 0.1 micron and 100 microns, however the grinding process may result in nanoparticles called ‘fines’ which are smaller and in the nanoparticle range. Kabana uses neither nanoparticle (size) zinc oxide, nor micronized (manufacturing process) zinc oxide. Instead Kabana uses micron-sized particles, created by a clean gas phase process that involves no grinding and maintains a tight particle size distribution in the micron range, average size 0.260 +/- standard deviation of 0.012 microns, which is 20x larger than most nanoparticle sunscreens. Given this tight size distribution, there are statistically zero nanoparticles in our zinc oxide. This particle size range has been used in products for decades and is considered safe.

For reference, 100 microns is 0.1 millimeter, which is the size of a fine grain of sand and as a sunscreen, would be useless because it would be impossible to evenly apply (and gritty!). All mineral sunscreens on the market are micron-sized, micronized or nano. Some companies advertise they are using micronized particles, but may still be using nanoparticles because nanoparticles are technically also a finer version of the micronized form. The only way for you to know that a sunscreen active ingredient is not nano is if the company provides you a particle size number. Zinc oxide in Kabana products are in the micron range (0.26 micron = 260nm) and are non-nano.

Nanoparticles have received some bad press recently by the media, largely based on some publications about other nanotechnology based compounds (Buckminsterfullerene, otherwise known as buckyballs or C-60) that are, however, entirely unrelated to sunscreen active ingredients. The primary question regarding nanoparticle sunscreen ingredients is whether or not they have an increased capacity to cross the skin and get absorbed into the blood. Kabana has not encountered any well controlled scientific experiments or publications that state this to be the case, however there hasn’t been a large amount of research. The answer to the nanoparticle question therefore remains somewhat uncertain. It’s Kabana’s ethical policy to always use common sense. The use of nanoparticles does not increase sunscreen effectiveness significantly, so Kabana avoids nanoparticle zinc oxide in all of our products because there’s no reason to expose our customers to unknown levels of increased risk.

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The answer is Zinc Oxide is a much safer and more effective sunscreen than Titanium Dioxide based on physical chemistry and biological effects. Kabana uses Zinc Oxide instead of Titanium Dioxide for the following four reasons:

• Titanium Dioxide’s UV absorption spectrum is not as broad spectrum in UVA and UVB as is Zinc Oxide; Zinc Oxide is a better absorber across more wavelengths which results in better, safer protection for you and your family.
• Titanium Dioxide creates more free radicals that do oxidative damage to your body and skin cells, and increases aging processes.
• Zinc Oxide is the ONLY sunscreen active ingredient that’s been tested and FDA approved for use on babies under 6 months of age and children – this illustrates its high degree of safety. It’s approved by FDA for use in diaper rash products to 50%, which illustrates its safety on the most sensitive skin on the planet.
• Titanium Dioxide contains Titanium, which is a metal that has no biological purpose in our bodies and poorly defined long term exposure risks; Zinc is a critical mineral nutrient that keeps us healthy. You won’t find Titanium in a multivitamin if you take one, but you certainly will find Zinc!

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Yes, Kabana does not pursue any animal testing, period. We do test our sunscreens on humans using the FDA sunscreen monograph testing protocol to generate the SPF number for labeling purposes. This process is mandated by law in the federal register.

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Yes, Green Screen®, as well as other Kabana products, are safe for the environment, reefs and fish. Our products are biodegradable and contain none of the petrochemicals known to have estrogenic effects in the environment, coral toxicity or bioaccumulation problems.

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Unfortunately, unlike the food industry’s USDA organic labeling criteria, there exist no standardized obligatory laws governing what constitutes ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ in personal care products. This means that manufacturers who use these terms can legally claim natural or organic products on the front label, but still use petroleum ingredients. Kabana has encountered competitors in the natural space who argue that petroleum is natural because it comes out of the ground. NSF has recently established a voluntary standard – NSF 305 – which manufacturers are adopting, but it isn’t well understood by the marketplace. Kabana’s manufacturing facility is both USDA NOP and NSF 305 certified compliant.

Since no real regulation exists, the sole way consumers can determine whether or not a product is safe and good for them to use is to read ingredient labels and know something about ingredients to avoid. Kabana has chosen to make this easy by exclusively using simple to understand, edible grade and common ingredients that offer superb nourishment and protection for our skin and bodies as a whole.

Kabana has also established a very strict definition of what constitutes ‘natural.’

In order for an ingredient to be deemed natural by Kabana’s rigorous standards it must be directly derived from a living organism via a sustainable process and free of petrochemicals, or is a mineral that has a proven safety record for use on and in the human body, such as with our spring water and non-nanoparticle zinc oxide. Kabana’s ingredients are of the highest quality, chosen specifically to ensure good health and environmental sustainability.

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Green Screen uses Zinc Oxide as its active ingredient. Zinc Oxide it a white pigment, which can turn skin white depending upon how much is applied and how dark your skin is naturally. At the rated SPF and application of 2 milligrams per square centimeter of skin, which is the density at which FDA makes sunscreen manufacturers test their products, it is principally transparent. This amount is about the equivalent of 1 ounce applied to your entire body when wearing a bathing suit.

Kabana also makes a tinted version that uses the biomineral iron oxide to provide a flesh-colored tint that reduces the chalkiness of the regular SPF 20 formula. Iron oxide is the same mineral that makes blood look red. Many of our customers find this more aesthetically pleasing. We may be releasing additional tinted products in the future to better match the skin tones of sunscreen users. Iron oxide is also the primary tint used in the highly popular mineral makeups.

Like what you’re reading? Try our zinc oxide Sunscreens! We offer four different tints, one of which is designed to match your own skin type.

Zinc Oxide is an excellent sunscreen because it has the broadest UV protective spectrum and cannot be absorbed into your blood, unlike all the petroleum-based sunscreen chemicals. It sits on the top of your skin where it needs to be, effectively providing a layer of armor against damaging UV rays.

Zinc Oxide is, however, an extremely misunderstood active ingredient in the suncare industry. Most manufacturers, dermatologists and media report that zinc oxide reflects and scatters UV radiation, an assumption they make because it looks white. This is completely wrong. It looks white because it does indeed reflect and scatter visible light, however it behaves entirely differently in the UV spectrum. It would look black in the UV spectrum because it absorbs UV radiation via a process of electron excitation called band-gap absorption.  Since energy always has to go somewhere, and UV is quite strong, zinc oxide absorbs UV and turns it into comparably harmless infrared, which it disposes of as heat.

Comparably, one of the issues with titanium dioxide is that although it absorbs UV, it cannot convert it as easily into heat, instead dumping the absorbed energy on nearby electrons and creating free radicals that cause oxidative damage to your DNA and other critical cellular structures.

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There are several reasons petrochemical sunscreens are bad for you:

• Petrochemical sunscreens penetrate the skin, resulting in bioaccumulation and systemic exposure. They often end up in your own or your children’s blood, and can accumulate in fat deposits. These compounds are toxic in themselves and will do direct DNA damage over time. Many of them also mimic estrogen in our bodies, which is associated with numerous diseases, including cancer and early puberty in young girls. Many fail to biodegrade, can accumulate in the water supply and ocean sediments, feminize fish and damage coral, information that has been studied and known for over a decade. You will find when you travel to tropical locales that most aquatic parks have banned petrochemical sunscreens for this reason, they did it on the Mexican Yucatan over twenty years ago, yet the United States is only just catching on to this issue. You can use Green Screen® in these parks however because it doesn’t contain the banned chemicals.
• Using petrochemical sunscreens trades UV-induced damage for chemical-induced damage. Although they absorb UV in certain wavelengths, no single petrochemical sunscreen is broad spectrum. Petrochemical sunscreens also do not convert UV energy into harmless energy as well as Zinc Oxide does. Instead, UV energy can ‘photodegrade’ the active ingredients. This means break chemical bonds and effectively not only inactivate the UV absorbing capacity of the molecule, but also create reactive free radicals that further damage your body. The fact that petrochemical sunscreens photodegrade is one of the major reasons it’s necessary to reapply about every two hours. Zinc Oxide on the other hand will not degrade and will remain effective as long as it stays on the surface of your skin.
• Petrochemicals used in sunscreen products result in extremely high exposure levels compared to other environmental contaminants present in our air, food and water (thousands to millions of times higher exposure because they are applied directly to skin!), yet using a zinc oxide-based sunscreen such as Green Screen® is a simple way to limit the risks associated with such chemical contaminant exposure.
• Since petrochemical sunscreens are photosensitive and their chemistry can be damaged by UV light, they often create additional free radicals that react with other biochemicals in your skin. In addition to being a precursor for the development of cancer, these irreversible chemical changes can cause a severe inflammatory response in your skin that may be red and very painful, it’s effectively a chemical burn.

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Kabana Skin Care offers two products that comply with the Very Water Resistant standard, which demands 80% of the rated SPF after 80 minutes of immersion in water. Our products that have been highly optimized for use in water are the Bali Bloc line, available as in Cocoa and Vanilla.

Other formulas have not been tested to the FDA-mandated testing for water-resistance, primarily because the water resistance test is statistically weak, and unless a sunscreen is specifically optimized for use in water, saying the product stays on you in the water is misleading and unethical, and gives the user a false sense of security.

The term ‘waterproof’ was excluded from the approved marketing terminology in FDA’s 1999 final monograph governing the manufacture of sunscreen products, because nothing on the planet is waterproof, and this term provides consumers a false sense of security while using the product. Terms that were excluded from the approved marketing language in the 1999 monograph but are still often used by unethical companies seeking to mislead their customers about the effectiveness of their products are:

“Sunblock”

Implies the product blocks the sun. No suncare product blocks the sun entirely, they only provide a measure of screening, which does indeed result in some UV exposure and subsequent damage.

“Waterproof”

Because no sunscreen product can possibly be waterproof, all will wash off eventually. Be wary of sunscreen manufacturers who make this claim – they are in violation of FDA law established to keep consumers safer.

“Sweat-proof”

Same reason as waterproof.

“All day protection”

No sunscreen performs throughout the entire day; they either wash off or photodegrade and become useless UV absorbers.

Effectively, sunscreen manufacturers that use these terms are not only violating FDA labeling law, but also actively increasing skin cancer rates because consumers think they are more protected than they actually are and expose their bodies to longer duration UV damage as a result.

FDA announced in June 2011 that they would be enforcing the 1999 OTC monograph rules on labeling beginning in the middle of 2012. Kabana views this as a positive development, as Green Screen will no longer be as disadvantaged in the marketplace as a result of our ethical marketing policies compared to the competition.

If you’re seeking a superbly water resistant sunscreen, our Bali Bloc line performs better than any other sunscreen product on the market because it was specifically optimized for use in water. It’s available in Cocoa, Vanilla and soon Unscented. All contain 100% organic ingredients.

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This is absolutely true. SPF 30 equates to 96.7% UV absorption, which means by applying such a product 96.7% of the UV your skin would otherwise be absorbing is getting absorbed by the product. Doubling the SPF value to 60 provides 98.3% UV absorption, or only 1.6% more UV protection with a possible 100% more petrochemical exposure or more, and this only works as long as the product stays on your skin, which sunscreens don’t do well. Each additional SPF unit above SPF 30 provides only a fraction more protection, but significantly more petrochemical exposure. Take a look at this graph. And if it isn’t on your skin, even an infinite SPF won’t do you any good.

It is for these reasons that the American Academy of Dermatology recommends you use an SPF 30 sunscreen and reapply about every two hours, or more often if you swim, sweat or even roll over on your towel. However, the reapplication advice is most appropriate for petrochemical sunscreens, as they degrade and become ineffective with exposure to sunlight and heat. Zinc oxide doesn’t degrade in this way, so unless you’ve done something to remove it from your skin, reapplication isn’t as necessary.

The graph above was mathematically derived by our founder, Erik Kreider, however afterward we discovered it was also published originally by RM Sayre, in Photochemistry & Photobiology, 1979. An interesting paper on UV and sunscreens that cites Sayre can be found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3460660/.

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Kabana Skincare is the only company selling sunscreen that makes our testing data publicly available. See below for the links to the original testing reports from the independent contract lab we use. Many sunscreen companies apply a mathematical formula based on active ingredient percentage to calculate the SPF number. This is illegal and totally unethical, because the SPF number is not linearly related to active ingredient content, as described by the graph below. Many companies will also use UV absorbing chemistry that is not approved for use as a sunscreen to boost the effective SPF. However since it costs about $5000 to properly test for the SPF on humans according to FDA’s 2011 OTC Monograph on Sunscreens, no one (not even the FDA) is currently ensuring products sold as sunscreens actually provide the protection they claim.

Green Screen SPF 31 Original:
Green Screen Original SPF Testing Data
Green Screen Original UVA/Critical Wavelength Data

Green Screen D SPF 35:
Green Screen D SPF Testing Data
Green Screen D UVA/Critical Wavelength Data

Green Screen SPF 32 Tinted:
Green Screen Tinted SPF Testing Data
Green Screen Tinted UVA/Critical Wavelength Data

Percentage UV Absorption or Protection = 100(1-1/SPFvalue)

You can observe from the graph that for SPF values above 30, the user gets very little additional effective UV protection. This graph concisely illustrates how an SPF value higher than 30 is a marketing gimmick.

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