Australia is one of the world's skin cancer hotspots, where around 2,000 people die from skin cancer and melanoma every year and nearly two out of every three Australians are expected to have at least one skin cancer removed during their lifetime.

In a country where sunscreen is an everyday necessity, a controversy that began in mid-2025 drew global attention after the consumer advocacy group Choice found that 16 out of 20 popular sunscreens failed to deliver the SPF protection claimed on their labels.

The most widely discussed case involved a product marketed as SPF 50+ that reportedly performed at around SPF 4 in testing.

The brand disputed the finding, but withdrew the product from sale, and Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration has since been reviewing why test results for the same products differ so widely between laboratories.