CBD Skin Care May Protect Against Sun Damage—and Skin Cancer—According to a New Study

A few years ago, it felt like CBD was everywhere: in bath soaks, topical creams, mint-flavored oils, gummies, even lube and skin care. Your coworkers were talking about it. Your parents were using it. Sephora was selling it. If you thought we were done with all things CBD beauty and skin care, it may be time to think again: A new study published in the journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has revealed a possible link between CBD and sun protection—and the data suggests it may even reduce the risk of skin cancer.

The study (which included 19 participants) looked specifically at nano-encapsulated CBD, meaning shrunken CBD particles in a specialized delivery system. It found that—following two weeks of UV exposure—skin had less redness, DNA damage, and cellular damage when it had been treated with the CBD cream versus a placebo. DNA damage can cause cells to mutate and grow rapidly, leading to skin cancer. (The group of 19 participants is standard for a study on an over-the-counter, non-prescription product—it’s typically about 20 to 30 people.)

It’s the latest study to suggest CBD and other cannabis extracts are capable of protecting skin from the sun: Another recent study done by researchers in Australia showed that a cannabis extract could potentially be used to treat melanoma. In 2013, a study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology showed that CBD could essentially “turn off” the skin-cell growth associated with some types of cancer. “When you think about ultraviolet radiation exposure, inflammation and the machinery that breaks down the skin is turned on—CBD actually inhibits that and regulates proper skin turnover,” says Adam Friedman, MD, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences, and one of the researchers behind the newest study. (The study was conducted in collaboration by the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences and the Center for Clinical and Cosmetic Research in Aventura, Florida.)

That doesn’t mean you should start slathering just any CBD cream all over. Remember how we said the study used nano-encapsulated CBD? That’s because CBD is a “hefty, sizable active,” explains Dr. Friedman—it doesn’t want to go through the outermost layer of the skin. So the team broke it down and shrunk it into the nanoparticle form and used a specific vehicle to ensure it was adequately distributed onto the skin. It’s difficult to tell if any CBD skin care companies are already using nano-encapsulated CBD in their formulations; Dr. Friedman says there’s “no transparency” around it. “I can’t speak to every product, but most of them are just regular CBD solubilized, meaning dissolved in a cream or oil,” he explains.