Pack zinc. Hawaii's sunscreen law, honestly.

I keep seeing posts about a July 1 expansion of Hawaii’s sunscreen ban to six ingredients. I went looking for it. The signed act, the HRS section, the governor’s press release — any of it. Couldn’t find one. What I could find is the law that’s actually in effect, and that’s worth talking about anyway, because the people saying “Hawaii bans six sunscreen ingredients” are right about the model and wrong about the details. The details matter when you’re packing a bag.

Here’s what’s actually on the books.

Hawaii’s statewide ban — Act 104 of 2018, HRS §342D-21 — has been in force since January 1, 2021. It prohibits the sale and distribution of sunscreens containing oxybenzone or octinoxate. Two ingredients, not six. Multiple bills to add octocrylene, avobenzone, homosalate, and octisalate have died in committee — SB 132 in 2021, SB 748 in 2024, SB 2053 in 2024. The four-chemical expansion is the one everyone keeps assuming has passed. It hasn’t.

Maui County is the place that actually went further. Bill 135, effective October 2022, bans the sale, distribution, and use of any sunscreen whose active ingredients aren’t zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. Fines up to $1,000. If you land in Kahului with the chemical sunscreen from the CVS in Des Moines — avobenzone, octocrylene, homosalate, the usual stack — you are technically out of compliance for use, not just for purchase. Tour operators on Maui enforce that hard. Plenty of operators on the other islands enforce mineral-only as a matter of policy, regardless of what the state law technically requires.

Now the take.

Regulating what manufacturers are allowed to sell is the right instinct. It’s the same point I keep making about reef destruction and microplastics: accountability flows up, not down. You don’t fix a watershed problem by guilt-tripping the snorkeler. You close the supply line. Hawaii in 2018 was the first state to actually do that for sunscreen, and the FDA agrees on the direction — of all the UV filters on the U.S. market, only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are classified as Generally Recognized as Safe and Effective. Everything else is in the “more data needed” pile.

What’s still off:

The supply-side regulation only works if the supply side actually has to comply.

The ban covers Hawaii retailers. The CVS in Des Moines is not a Hawaii retailer. Tourists land at HNL with sunscreen that was perfectly legal where they bought it, and the statewide two-ingredient list doesn’t even cover the four chemicals that are in most of their bottles. Maui’s stricter rule fixes that for one island. The other islands rely on operator-by-operator enforcement and the honor system.

What to pack, then. If you’re going to Hawaii — any island, especially Maui — bring a mineral sunscreen. Zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, non-nano if you can find it. The white-cast issue is mostly solved on the newer formulas. Pack enough for the trip; on-island prices are what you’d expect.

One more thing worth knowing, because it’s easy to confuse with a ban: SB 840 in the 2025 session is a dispenser program — DLNR partnering to stock free mineral-sunscreen dispensers at state beaches. Not an expansion of the ingredient list. A backstop for the tourists the current rule keeps missing.

The model is right. The rollout still lands on the tourist. Pack zinc.