I used to think the same thing, but the thing is we don’t care about the energy that goes into the sunscreen, we care about the remaining percent that goes into the skin. If you go from a sunscreen that absorbs 98% of the sun’s energy to one that absorbs 99% you are halving the amount of energy your skin is exposed to.
If you’re still getting burned with 98% absorption, then increasing that number by 1% would actually make a huge difference. And that’s without even considering things like having a safety margin for improper application.
I used to think the same thing, but the thing is we don’t care about the energy that goes into the sunscreen, we care about the remaining percent that goes into the skin. If you go from a sunscreen that absorbs 98% of the sun’s energy to one that absorbs 99% you are halving the amount of energy your skin is exposed to.
If you’re still getting burned with 98% absorption, then increasing that number by 1% would actually make a huge difference. And that’s without even considering things like having a safety margin for improper application.
Fair point
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_paradox