Butylparaben

Where it’s restricted

Named in the law or guidance

Why it’s regulated

Thailand's national parks department banned sunscreens containing butylparaben, oxybenzone, octinoxate or 4-MBC in a notification issued 24 June 2021 and published in the Royal Gazette on 3 August 2021 (in force the next day), citing general academic evidence that sunscreen chemicals harm coral larvae and reproduction and cause bleaching. The EU limit is a consumer-safety rule, not a reef one: Regulation 1004/2014, applying from 16 April 2015, caps butylparaben and propylparaben at 0.14% (as acid, summed).

What the reef research says

In Danovaro et al. (2008), single sunscreen ingredients were added to Acropora coral branches, and butylparaben, tested at 0.5% (a level set from the concentrations allowed in sunscreens), caused complete bleaching, as did octinoxate, oxybenzone and 4-MBC. Octocrylene and ethylhexyl salicylate had little or no effect in the same tests. In a five-week experiment on Stylophora pistillata (Fel et al., Coral Reefs 2019), butylparaben at 100 µg/L cut the photosynthetic efficiency of the corals' symbiotic algae by 25%, while 10 µg/L produced no such decline and ethylparaben had no adverse effect. The Fel authors say more is needed on in situ concentrations and on individual and combined effects.

Products that contain it (1)

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Related ingredients: Propylparaben, Methylparaben, Benzylparaben, Isobutylparaben

Last reviewed October 14, 2026.