Nara Smith Shares Sunscreen Recipe: Is It Safe And Effective?

Nara Smith is well known on TikTok for making many things from scratch. She's shared video tutorials making a variety of food, including gum and condiments, and recently shared a video of her husband, Lucky Blue Smith, making homemade sunscreen.

The big question here - is homemade sunscreen as effective as store-bought? Dermatologists chime in.

Nara isn't the only one making things from scratch in the kitchen. Her husband Lucky also knows his way around the kitchen and recently made some homemade sunscreen.

"We've been spending a lot of time outside by the pool, and I realized that we ran out of sunscreen. I asked Lucky to make me some," Nara said in the viral TikTok video. "We all burn pretty easily, so we went with something with a little bit more SPF."

Lucky added some coconut oil into a bowl, and then some beeswax, shea butter, and cocoa butter.

"Once all of that was combined in the bowl, he added some jojoba oil as well," she continued. "He then filled a pot with some water before placing it on the stove, letting it come to a boil, and placing the glass bowl on top of that. He continuously stirred until everything was melted and combined."

When the mixture was taken off the heat, Lucky added some zinc oxide powder and whisked it all together for about a minute.

"Once everything was combined, he transferred it over to a glass jar before closing that and popping that in the fridge to solidify," she said. "About an hour later, it was all solid and ready to apply."

Nara's video received more than 16 million views, and 23,000 comments, and was saved more than 100,000 times in just a few short days. Many viewers had some thoughts about the family's homemade sunscreen.

"Homemade Sunscreen is insane!!!" one viewer shared in the comment section. Another said, "Y'all are going to FRY this summer with this concoction."

One viewer asked, "Wouldn’t all these oils just bake your skin?" Another person asked, "How do you guys have everything to prepare an item and not the item itself??"

One person asked, "How do you know how much SPF is in your mix and which Ingredient does it come from?" Another viewer replied, "The zinc oxide is the sun protection but I really have no clue how you would know what SPF it is," and another added, "Mixing zinc with oils does NOT make it a sunscreen that actually protects you from the sun."

It seems there's some controversy brewing over the Smith's homemade sunscreen. Is it really effective enough to be used instead of store-bought sunscreen?

Glamour spoke to a few dermatologists to see just how safe it is to make your own homemade sunscreen.

"DIY sunscreen should be avoided as there is no way to know how effective the formulation is and how much protection it will actually provide," Marisa Garshick, MD, a New York City board-certified dermatologist told Glamour. "It may provide a false sense of security and leave someone susceptible to sunburn or potential for irritation."

And if that wasn't convincing enough, another board-certified dermatologist agreed calling it a "terrible idea."

"Many things applied to the skin have some degree of SPF, including some of the ingredients Nara used. But these may be an SPF 2 or 3, not SPF 30, which is what I recommend my patients use - and ideally one with a mineral component like titanium or zinc," Adarsh Vijay Mudgil, MD said. "Purchase a reputable sunscreen that contains a minimum SPF 30 and contains a mineral ingredient like titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide."

Sunscreen isn't the only non-food item the couple has made and shared on TikTok. Earlier this month, Lucky made toothpaste!

"We were about to go to bed when I realized that we were all out of toothpaste. So my husband went downstairs to make some," Nara said as she narrated Lucky's video.

Lucky measured out some bentonite clay and mixed it with water until it was smooth. He then measured out some coconut oil to add to the clay mixture.

"He also added a teaspoon of baking soda," she continued. "He gave that a really good mix, made sure everything was combined before he added the last two ingredients which were some stevia and peppermint essential oil."

Some viewers dropped into the comments to ask if they live far from the store, how they have all the ingredients to make toothpaste but not the actual toothpaste, and if they could make a variety of other things jokingly.

It's not just sunscreen and toothpaste that Lucky knows how to make. He's also made homemade moisturizer in the past and shared a demo on TikTok.

"This morning my husband ran out of the moisturizer that he usually uses and he didn't love it enough to repurchase, so he just decided to make his own," Nara said in the video.

Lucky added some beeswax and beef tallow in a metal bowl melted it over some boiling water. After it was melted down, he turned off the heat and added squalene and jojoba oil, before adding vitamin E oil, hyaluronic acid, and glycerin.

CeraVe dropped into the comments to say, "You do it all." Another viewer wanted to know when the Nara Smith skincare line was going to come out.