Maui County is the only US jurisdiction that restricts wearing sunscreen
Ordinance 5306 prohibits non-mineral sunscreen — and unlike Hawaii’s statewide law, it reaches use and application, not just sale.
Maui County covers Maui, Lānaʻi, Molokaʻi and Kahoʻolawe. Its ordinance took effect on 1 October 2022 and it is broader than the state statute in two ways: it restricts every non-mineral filter rather than two named chemicals, and it restricts more than selling.
Three prohibitions, not one
A. A person must not sell, offer for sale, or distribute for sale any non-mineral sunscreen without a prescription issued by a licensed healthcare provider. B. Any non-mineral sunscreen must not be sold, provided, or offered for use at any County facility, County-authorized concession, County-sponsored or County-permitted event, or County program, without a prescription issued by a licensed healthcare provider. C. Any non-mineral sunscreen must not be used or applied by any person, unless the sunscreen is from a prescription issued by a licensed healthcare provider.
County of Maui · read word for word on Subsection A is a sale restriction. B reaches sunscreen provided or offered for use at County facilities and County-permitted events. C reaches use or application by any person.
The three subsections do different work, and the distinction is the one that matters to a property. A sunscreen given away rather than sold is not reached by subsection A, which is drafted as “distribute for sale”. It is reached by subsection C, which applies to use or application by any person and does not care whether money changed hands — and, at a County facility or a County-permitted event, by subsection B as well.
So a resort offering a non-mineral sunscreen free of charge on a pool deck has not escaped the ordinance by not selling it. That is the opposite of the position under Hawaii’s statewide statute, which reaches commerce only.
What “non-mineral” means here
"Non-mineral sunscreen" means any sunscreen that uses an active ingredient other than zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.
County of Maui · read word for word on
The ordinance sets no particle-size requirement
This is the most common misreading of Ordinance 5306, and it comes from an understandable place: the County’s own guidance page for visitors says this.
This is the County of Maui’s public guidance to visitors, not the text of Ordinance 5306. The enacted ordinance does not mention particle size.
To help protect Maui County reefs, choose only mineral sunscreens made with ‘non-nanotized’ zinc oxide or titanium dioxide—natural mineral ingredients.
County of Maui · read word for word on
The enacted ordinance says something different. Its definition of a non-mineral sunscreen turns entirely on which active ingredient is used, and particle size appears nowhere in chapter 20.42. The word “nanometers” does appear in the definitions — but it describes the range of ultraviolet light the filter protects against, not the size of anything:
"Zinc oxide" means the chemical Oxozinc under the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry chemical nomenclature registry, has a chemical abstract service registry number 1314-13-2, and whose synonyms include ZnO, zinc white, calamine, Chinese White, flowers of zinc, and zinc oxide, and is intended to be used as protection against ultraviolet light radiation with a spectrum wavelength from four hundred nanometers to two hundred twenty nanometers in an epidermal sunscreen-protection personal-care product.
County of Maui · read word for word on Four hundred nanometers down to two hundred and twenty is the ultraviolet band. It is a statement about wavelength, not about particle diameter.
Both things are therefore true at once: the County recommends a particle size in its guidance to visitors, and the ordinance requires only that the active ingredient be one of the two minerals it names. A guidance page is evidence of what an agency advises. Only the ordinance is evidence of what it requires.
What this means for Solvyn Shield
Shield’s single active ingredient is zinc oxide 17.50%, as listed on its FDA-registered label. Zinc oxide is one of the two actives MCC §20.42.030 names, so a sunscreen whose only active is zinc oxide is not a “non-mineral sunscreen” as that chapter defines the term.
That is a reading of a published definition against a published label, and both documents are linked above so it can be checked rather than taken on trust. It is not a determination by the County, which administers chapter 20.42 through its Department of Environmental Management, and it is not legal advice.
This page makes no claim about particle size, in either direction, because the ordinance makes no requirement about it.
Every quotation on this page was read from the issuing body’s own text, not from a summary. This page was last reviewed end to end on . Each quotation carries its own source and the date that text was read.
Quoted from Ordinance No. 5306 as signed. A county council legislates year-round, so this page is re-read against the codified chapter more often than the state statutes are.
Other jurisdictions
- Hawaii (statewide)
HRS §342D-21 — oxybenzone and octinoxate, sale only.
- Key West, Florida
Preempted by Fla. Stat. §499.002(7) since 2020.
- What “reef-safe” means
The ingredients, the science and the term itself — separate from what any law requires.