Ten labs later.

In June we made a promise: from now on, our opinion of the sunscreen should matter less, and proof should matter more. That means a lab running the same tests the big brands run. Today that testing starts.

We thought this would be the easy part. Our manufacturer already works with labs. We planned to take their suggestion and move on. Then we started reading. The more we read, the less we liked that plan.

Here's why. Last year, an independent investigation in India sent ten popular sunscreens to accredited labs. Six of them gave less than half the SPF printed on the bottle. Big names. Every price range. Quietly giving less protection to people who trusted them. (source)

That's the market we're entering. If we're asking you to put our sunscreen on your face every morning — and on your children's — the number on our tube has to be real. Measured on human skin.

So we took our time. We spoke to more than ten labs. We asked each one: what will you test, to which standard, and what will you leave out?

That last question told us the most. The cheaper, faster quotes almost always left out the test that matters most: the in-vivo test. "In-vivo" means the sunscreen is tested on real people, and the SPF is measured on their skin under controlled UV light. After last year, India's standard now says the SPF on a label must come from this test. It's also the slowest and most expensive test. That's why shortcuts skip it. We won't.

It took weeks of calls to choose a lab. The one we picked wasn't the cheapest. They test for brands you'd know, and when we pushed, they told us plainly what they could and couldn't certify. After all those conversations, that mattered as much as their name.

We don't have results yet. This isn't "our sunscreen passed." It's "testing has started, and here's the bar we set."

First comes a lab screen. Only if the formula passes does it go to the test on people, which decides the label.

And here's our promise, in writing: we will only print the SPF number the certificate confirms. If it comes back short, we go back to the formula. We don't round up. We don't launch on a hope.

Results take time. We'd rather wait than give you a number we can't stand behind.

Until then, the waitlist is open. Your first bottle is ₹499 if you join before we launch.

— Aashish & Rishitha, 78 Labs