Warning about sunscreen - it will dissolve your interior!

[Vapour Trails]

I have inadvertently found out that sunscreen has the potential to etch the interior plastics of cars.

My last autocross meet was held on an extremely hot day and I applied lots of sunscreen because I always manage to get burnt. My leg was sprayed and it commonly rests against the side of the center console when driving.

A week after my meet I noticed that the plastic on the left side of the console was soft and gummy in the spot where my leg rests. I cleaned the residue off but it will never look quite right again.

I also found a spot on the driver's door switch panel (for the windows) that is all soft and dissolved.

 

[JGrein05]

Weird, what kind of sunscreen did you use?

 

[Agent007]

sulfuric acid??? LOL

 

[stkjock]

Must be the substrate in the spray based versions. When I had my very I'd use lotion sunscreen constantly. Kept it in the console. Never any issues.

 

[Scott_0]

Dang that's pretty crazy, thanks for the heads up

 

[crownaviation]

It must be some of that crazy tree hugger stuff they sell up there in canada lol! J/k

That does suck tho. Pretty easy to find replacements if you had to. Hope it all works out for you and thanks for posting it!

 

[Rasmus]

Hot and humid climate, convertible, and Scandinavian skin here. I keep sunscreen in the car at all time. Never had a problem.

 

[Vapour Trails]

Must be the substrate in the spray based versions. When I had my very I'd use lotion sunscreen constantly. Kept it in the console. Never any issues.

Yes, it was the spray on sunscreen.

 

[mot250]

I personally thing the spray on sunscreen is the bane of humanity. This issue with interior plastic is just one more reason.

Sure, it may go on easy, easier to get on your kids who don't want to stand still, fast to go on and provide less irritation from rubbing traditional lotion-based sunscreen on that may be contaminated with sand already on your skin.

But the spray on stuff smells bad and travels for long distances in the wind, potentially bothering multitudes of others in the general 50 ft radius. And hope it doesn't get in anyone's eyes...

 

[808muscle]

I gotta tell you as a distributor of sunscreens for 24 years. When the spray screens get sprayed on the plastic racks we use to display them. It literally melts part of the plastic. Very weird IMO. Hard to imagine after you sprayed it on your legs it still was potent enough to do damage to the plastic in your car. Not good.

Have you seen the video of the guy catching on fire after applying some Banana Boat spray sunscreen? Wow.

 

[VTXFrank]

Thanks for the heads up. I won't be using the spray on stuff any more!

 

[ZmanM3]

I just won't use it around my car.