Advice please - suncream and sensitive DS!

[VirginiaWoolf]

DS is 2.9, and very fair skinned - blonde hair, blue eyes, you know the type.
Last summer I invested what felt like millions of £ trying to find a high factor suncream that didn't disagree with his skin. He had Nivea, Simple, Green People kids' stuff and ended up with Avene, which seemed to suit him. The ones that didn't suit brought him out in a rash of tiny raised pimples, sometimes with the general area being rather pink too. He has never scratched/rubbed as if it itches. Anyway, with the warmer weather recently I sent him to nursery with Avene, noticed a few tiny raised pimples last week but put it down to maternal paranoia but today it was really sunny so nursery staff understandably applied it liberally and when I collected him at 1 his arms/face were covered in tiny raised pimples, with pink skin underneath.
Wah!
Really thought I'd found one to suit him.
Sorry I've waffled on, thanks for reading this, any advice very gratefully received!

My ds is allergic to suncream. I have been using P50 (or something like that, it's ina whit box)for the past few years, it's the only one that doesn't bring him out in an itchy rash. You only have to put it on once a day aswell. Wilco's sell it, it's about £11 for a small bottle but it lasts ages.

they are all useless in this country, I have no idea why. my 4 have ezcema etc and go NUTS on nivea, e45, all of those. soltan is terrible. The ones which DON'T set them off are all common american brands - I've come to the conclusion that they have different active ingredients. So Coppertone Kids and Hawaiian tropic baby faces and tender places (my 1st choice - partly because of the splendid name) are all absolutely problem free.
If you know anyone going to the states then ask them to bring some back - any drugstore has them - and see what you think.
Otherwise I think the RoC sunscreen is OK, but expensive. You might try that.
HTH

I get terrible eczema from sun creams and had a chat with a GP in South Africa about it. He said that there were two different types of chemical that block the sun. One is used in some sunblocks, and the other is used in others. One of these chemicals can give some people a rash but the other tends to do so less frequently. I can't remember what the "rash" chemical is, but the one that tends not to make people react so much is called something like "cinnamate" (or methoxycinnamate). It might be worth looking at the huge long list of ingredients on the back of each sun block and seeing if you can find one with "cinnimate" in it. Buy that one and see if your DS is ok with it.

I got "Every Sun Aquasport" in SA and was absolutely fine with it. It was normal price. I have also used used Clarins sun cream, which I didn't have a reaction to, but it was extortionately expensive. Smelled nice though.

Wow, thank you all for your replies. Certainly given me some different ones to try which is great, as I didn't know where to turn next.

My hubby gets this, and uses Piz Buin as it doesn't set him off.

oooh piz buin is one of the worst for us
the absolute worst is ambre solaire kids - avoid like the plague

I suppose that really the outcome of this is that everyone's sensitive skin is different! OK, I'll go back to trial and error, but thank you all again - as I said before, at least I've got some differenct ideas to try now.

My dd can only take AMbre Solaire, everything else causes rashes.
It's the preservative, MDGB that you are sensitive to normally

I found a herbal one from Germany - bought it online and can't remember who from now (which is annoying as I need to replace it). Anyway, it is called Lavera Kids Sun Spray. Factor 25.
My DS is allergic to every brand I've tried, but is fine with this.

Just Googled, and various Lavera products are available from www.ecobaby.co.uk. Can't see the one I bought, but it was a couple of years ago, so they've probably rebranded it. There is one for allergy prone skin though.

Dh has been plagued by this also. He uses Vichy sun cream. Not cheap, but no rash.