I take college students to Belize every other year, and we now "encourage" the alternative sunscreens. In doing some (limited) reading on it, it's worth noting that oxybenzone likely wouldn't be approved for a cosmetic product today due to federal legislation in the 1970's. It was "grandfathered" in back in the day, so skipped proving safety. As others have noted, forget the coral, this stuff might kill you! Having said that, we tell students if the choice is no sunscreen or oxybenzone, skin cancer avoidance wins.
Purely anecdotally, my wife had a nasty skin reaction to oxybenzone in sunscreen (per a docs diagnosis, not the perfumes or additives since we were using an "additive free" version). She had hives everywhere she applied the sunscreen. She went with coral safe the rest of the trip, even when we weren't going in the water, and never had a problem.
The drag with the alternatives is that they give you that ghostly appearance. I'm too old too care about looking good and am happy enough with a white stripe down my nose.
Purely anecdotally, my wife had a nasty skin reaction to oxybenzone in sunscreen (per a docs diagnosis, not the perfumes or additives since we were using an "additive free" version). She had hives everywhere she applied the sunscreen. She went with coral safe the rest of the trip, even when we weren't going in the water, and never had a problem.
The drag with the alternatives is that they give you that ghostly appearance. I'm too old too care about looking good and am happy enough with a white stripe down my nose.