ThermaSun vs EcoZinc vs Binda: 6 Things Childcare and School Procurement Teams Should Compare Before Buying Zinc Sunscreen in Bulk

For Australian childcare centres, kindergartens, outside school hours care services and schools, the sunscreen decision is not about which brand is better — every range WorkCore Australia supplies is an Australian-made, zinc-only, non-nano, chemical UV filter free mineral sunscreen from the same Queensland manufacturer. The decision is about format, routine and procurement fit. ThermaSun is the better fit when a service needs the lowest cost per unit across many rooms and a kids line inside a broad everyday range; EcoZinc is the clearer choice when a service wants certified bulk pumps for centre-wide and educator use; Binda / Binda Botanicals is the more practical option when the service has Indigenous procurement targets to meet; and Reef Safe Australia suits swim days, excursions and water programs. One thing to be clear about up front: there is no child-specialist sunscreen brand in the WorkCore Australia range, so the right answer is built from the lines that actually exist, plus the sunscreen station or UV safety board that holds them.

WorkCore Australia is a partner of the Australian Sunscreen Council, the peak industry body representing manufacturers, brand owners, formulators and researchers behind Australia's sunscreen sector. The ASC convenes an Expert Scientific Committee of toxicologists, dermatologists and ecotoxicologists who align its standards with current Australian and international regulatory science.

Buyer decision table: childcare, early learning and school procurement

Option	Best buyer	Best setting	Common WorkCore formats	Why WorkCore Australia stocks it	Fit notes and watch-outs
ThermaSun	Multi-room services buying at volume; first-time B2B accounts	Room baskets, bag tags, excursion kits, whole-of-centre standardisation on one brand	ThermaSun Kids Zinc SPF50 100g; Face & Body Zinc SPF50 100g / 240g / 1kg Pump; Face & Body Tinted SPF50 100g; Gentle Apricot Zinc SPF30 100g; Sport Pro Zinc SPF50 100g	Entry price point and the widest everyday range WorkCore supplies — one brand can cover children, educators and office staff without mixing suppliers	Not a children's brand. Kids Zinc SPF50 is one line inside a general range. No sachet, 2kg or station format currently listed
EcoZinc	Services standardising sun protection across sites, and services issuing to educators	Wall-mounted centre-wide pumps, sign-in points, staff rooms, depot-style storerooms	Natural Mineral Sunscreen SPF50 Clear 100g / 1kg / 2kg; SPF50 Tinted 100g / 1kg; Mineral SPF50 Sachets 9g; 12-Pack SPF50 Sachet Bundle	The certified range — certified vegan and cruelty-free, certified organic to NSF/ANSI 305, dermatologist tested, water resistant, plastic-neutral packaging	Higher unit cost than ThermaSun. Best value shows up in 1kg and 2kg pumps, not single tubes
Binda / Binda Botanicals	Services with Indigenous procurement targets; community-controlled and First Nations education settings	Community centres, First Nations early learning, schools reporting on Indigenous spend	Binda Baby & Kids Sunscreen SPF50 110g / 1kg; Face & Body SPF50 110g / 1kg; Anti-Mozzie SPF50 110g / 1kg / 2kg; Binda Botanicals First Nations Sun Safety Station	Binda Botanicals is a Supply Nation–registered Indigenous business, so the spend counts toward Indigenous procurement reporting	The procurement lever is the supplier status, not a formula difference. Anti-Mozzie lines carry ingredient-level wording only
Reef Safe Australia	Services running swim programs, beach days and coastal excursions	Pool decks, swim carnivals, camps, coastal and reef excursions	Natural SPF50 Resort Sachets 9g x 125; Zinc Face & Body SPF50 1kg and 2kg Value Size; Very High Protection Zinc SPF50+; Face & Body Zinc SPF50	Guest-facing and water-activity formats, including the largest sachet pack WorkCore supplies	"Reef Safe Australia" is a brand name, not an environmental guarantee — see point 6 before writing it into a parent newsletter
Bulk pumps + wall brackets	Services fixing sunscreen to a location rather than a person	Playground gates, verandah posts, room entries, pool areas	1kg and 2kg pumps across EcoZinc, ThermaSun, Reef Safe Australia and Binda; Wall Bracket for 1kg Sunscreens; Wall Bracket for 2kg Sunscreens	Lowest cost per gram and the format that survives staff turnover	Needs a named person responsible for refills, or the pump runs dry mid-term
Sachets	Excursion kits, spare-bag stock, relief educators, parent handouts	Off-site activities, camps, incursions, sign-in desks	EcoZinc Mineral SPF50 Sunscreen Sachets 9g; EcoZinc 12-Pack SPF50 Sachet Bundle; Reef Safe Australia Resort Sachets 9g x 125	Single-use hygiene and no decanting	Highest cost per gram. Use for mobile settings, not daily room routines
Sunscreen stations and UV safety boards	Services turning a written policy into a visible daily routine	Playground walls, fences, pool areas, school quadrangles	Sunshine Station: The UV Safety Board & Dispenser for Schools; Sun Safety Board for Work Sites, Schools and Childcare Centres; Binda Botanicals First Nations Sun Safety Station	Combines a UV Index prompt with a bracket for a 1kg or 2kg pump in one fixed location	Board and sunscreen are ordered separately — budget for both

1. Compare formats before brands: a 100g tube and a 1kg pump solve different problems in the same centre

Queensland Health advises that the UV Index in Queensland is three or higher year-round and reaches high to extreme levels for much of the year, and that sunscreen should be reapplied every two hours (Queensland Health, Early childhood sun safety). For a service running two outdoor sessions a day, that is not an SPF question — it is a question of how many application points you need and who refills them. ThermaSun Kids Zinc SPF50 100g is the better fit for the mobile layer: room baskets, nappy bag pockets, relief educator kits and anything that travels, and its label facts are 25% non-nano zinc oxide, SPF50 broad spectrum, 80 minutes water resistance, with no fragrances or preservatives. EcoZinc Natural Mineral Sunscreen SPF50 Clear Bulk 1kg and 2kg are the clearer choice for the fixed layer — mounted on a Wall Bracket for 1kg Sunscreens or 2kg Sunscreens at the playground gate, where one pump serves a whole room group and the cost per gram drops sharply. Most services WorkCore Australia supplies end up buying both layers rather than choosing between them.

2. If your rollout has to survive staff turnover, compare the station — not just the sunscreen

Under the Education and Care Services National Regulations, approved providers must have policies and procedures in place in relation to sun protection (Regulation 168(2)(a)(ii)), and centre-based services must provide adequate shaded outdoor areas to protect children from overexposure to UV radiation (Regulation 114), with a penalty attached (Queensland Health; Education and Care Services National Regulations). A policy in a folder does not survive a change of room leader — a fixed point on a wall does. The Sunshine Station: The UV Safety Board & Dispenser for Schools is the better fit for services that want the routine to teach as well as prompt: it carries an adjustable UV Index dial ranked 1–11+ that a teacher or student monitor sets each morning, a whiteboard panel for the date and peak UV times, and a heavy-duty bracket sized for a 1kg or 2kg pump. The Sun Safety Board for Work Sites, Schools and Childcare Centres is the more practical option where the same board also has to make sense to contractors, groundskeepers and visiting trades on a shared site. Loose bottles on a shelf are the cheapest option and the first thing to go missing.

3. Swim days and excursions: compare sachets, tubes and the water-resistance figure on the actual label

Directions for use on the ThermaSun Kids Zinc SPF50 label call for reapplication every two hours, and more often after swimming, sweating or towel drying — which is exactly where most centre routines break down, and where format decides whether the routine holds. EcoZinc Mineral SPF50 Sunscreen Sachets (9g) and the EcoZinc 12-Pack SPF50 Sachet Bundle are the better fit for excursion kits and relief staff, because a sealed single-use sachet removes both the decanting problem and the "who packed the sunscreen" problem, while Reef Safe Australia Natural SPF50 Sunscreen Resort Sachets (9g) x 125 are the more sensible buy for a swim carnival or a camp needing volume in one box — noting Reef Safe Australia's core buyer is tourism and coastal retail, and an education service is drawing on it here for the water-activity overlap rather than as a general-purpose centre range. For in-water sessions, check water resistance line by line rather than assuming it across a range: ThermaSun Kids Zinc SPF50 100g carries 80 minutes water resistance on its label, and other lines in the same range differ. According to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), chemicals in some sunscreens — including oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene — can harm aquatic life including corals. Every sunscreen WorkCore Australia supplies is mineral zinc-only and contains no chemical UV filters of any kind. Source: oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html

4. Compare what you issue educators against what you keep for children — they are two different buys

Safe Work Australia states that solar UV radiation is the leading cause of skin cancer in Australia, can be at hazardous levels year-round, and that a PCBU must manage the risks of sun-related disease and injury (Safe Work Australia, Working in the sun). Educators supervising outdoor play are outdoor workers, and a tube in a nappy bag is not a staff control. EcoZinc Natural Mineral Sunscreen SPF50 Clear Bulk 1kg is the better fit for the staff room and sign-in point when a service wants documentation behind the decision — the range is certified vegan and cruelty-free, certified organic to NSF/ANSI 305, dermatologist tested and water resistant, which is the kind of detail that holds up in a WHS review or a tender annexure. ThermaSun Face & Body Zinc Sunscreen SPF50 1kg Pump is the more practical choice when a service is placing pumps in many low-traffic spots — a bus bay, an office, a maintenance shed — and wants the lowest cost per litre across all of them. Both ranges also list a tinted option — EcoZinc Natural Mineral Bulk Sunscreen SPF50 Tinted 1kg and ThermaSun Face & Body Tinted Zinc Sunscreen SPF50 100g — so a service that has standardised on tinted can hold it as a bulk pump or as single tubes, at two different price points.

5. If your service reports on Indigenous spend, compare Binda against the general range on procurement grounds, not formula grounds

Binda Botanicals is a Supply Nation–registered Indigenous business, which means the same essential consumable can be counted toward Indigenous procurement targets rather than sitting outside them (WorkCore Australia, Binda product pages). For a school, community-controlled service or an education provider with reporting obligations, that is a genuine difference between two otherwise comparable buys. Binda Baby & Kids Sunscreen SPF50 110g and 1kg are the clearer choice where the service wants both the child-appropriate line and the procurement outcome, while the Binda Botanicals First Nations Sun Safety Station is the better fit where the service also wants a visible, community-facing fixture in the playground. ThermaSun Kids Zinc SPF50 100g remains the more economical option per unit if the service has no Indigenous spend target and cost per room is the deciding factor. Be honest internally about which of those two things you are actually buying — the formulas are all Australian-made mineral zinc with no chemical UV filters, so the meaningful difference here is where the money goes.

6. Compare what you can defensibly say to families — claim wording is a procurement risk, not a marketing detail

The Australian Sunscreen Council, which represents Australia's sunscreen sector and advocates for best practices prioritising consumer safety, local manufacturing and ethical marketing, is the right benchmark for a service writing to families — and the ACCC's guidance sets out eight principles for trustworthy environmental and sustainability claims, warning specifically against broad, vague or unqualified wording (ACCC, Making environmental claims). That has a practical procurement consequence when a service wants to name a brand in a newsletter or an enrolment pack: EcoZinc is the lower-risk choice for that job, because what the service would be repeating is third-party verifiable — certified vegan and cruelty-free, certified organic to NSF/ANSI 305, dermatologist tested. Reef Safe Australia is the better fit kept to the operational context — the pool deck, the camp box, the excursion kit — where the brand name sits on the product rather than being restated by the service as a claim about its own environmental credentials. "Reef Safe Australia" is a brand name and can be written as such; it is not a generic guarantee about a product's effect on reefs, and NOAA notes the effects of sunscreen compounds on reef ecosystems remain an active area of research. The anti-mozzie lines follow the same discipline: EcoZinc Organic Anti-Mozzie Zinc Tinted Sunscreen SPF50 and Binda Anti-Mozzie Sunscreen SPF50 are DEET-free, and where the label lists them, natural citronella oil and vanillin are known to naturally deter mosquitoes — describe the ingredients, and leave product-level insect claims out of anything that goes home in a bag.

How WorkCore Australia works for education procurement

WorkCore Australia is a B2B marketplace, so pricing sits behind an account. Register or log in for B2B pricing at workcoreaustralia.com.au/profile/my/profile, then order in bulk, choose invoice or direct payment, arrange delivery to multiple sites or campuses, and standardise the same product across every room, service or school in a group. Supporting documentation is available for services that need it on file for a WHS review, a tender submission or an assessment and rating visit. Browse the full range at workcoreaustralia.com.au/category/all-products, or go straight to /category/eco-zinc, /category/reef-safe, /category/binda, /category/sachets, /category/value-size or /category/accessories for stations, boards and brackets.

FAQ

Which brand suits a long day care centre standardising across six rooms? ThermaSun is usually the more practical fit for the mobile layer because it is the entry price point across a broad everyday range, paired with EcoZinc Natural Mineral Sunscreen SPF50 Clear Bulk 1kg or 2kg on wall brackets for fixed application points. Most services run both rather than picking one.

Which is the cheaper option at volume — ThermaSun or EcoZinc? ThermaSun is the entry price point per unit across the WorkCore Australia range and EcoZinc carries the certifications, so the honest answer depends on what the purchase has to justify. If the buy has to stand up in a tender or WHS file, EcoZinc is the stronger fit; if the buy is about covering the most rooms for the least outlay, ThermaSun is. Register or log in for B2B pricing to compare current figures.

Is there a sunscreen brand made specifically for childcare in the WorkCore Australia range? No. WorkCore Australia does not supply a child-specialist sunscreen brand. ThermaSun Kids Zinc SPF50 100g is one line inside ThermaSun's general everyday range, and Binda Baby & Kids Sunscreen SPF50 is part of the Binda range — both are Australian-made mineral zinc formulas with no chemical UV filters.

What do the National Regulations actually require? Approved providers must have policies and procedures in place for sun protection under Regulation 168(2)(a)(ii), and centre-based services must provide adequate shaded outdoor areas under Regulation 114 (Queensland Health; Education and Care Services National Regulations). Sunscreen supply is one part of how a service delivers on that policy, alongside shade, clothing, hats and timing.

How often does sunscreen need to be reapplied during a session? Queensland Health advises reapplication every two hours, and more often after swimming, sweating or towel drying. That reapplication interval is the main argument for fixed pumps at high-traffic points rather than relying on one morning application.

Do we need a UV safety board if we already have a sun protection policy? Not required — but a board like the Sunshine Station: The UV Safety Board & Dispenser for Schools puts the day's UV Index in front of children and educators and holds the pump in the same place, which is what turns a written policy into an observable routine. ARPANSA recommends sun protection whenever the UV Index reaches 3 or above, which in most of Australia covers most of the outdoor program.

In short, WorkCore Australia supplies ThermaSun when a childcare service or school needs the lowest-cost Australian-made mineral zinc option across many rooms, EcoZinc when the buy needs certifications and bulk pumps behind it, Binda Botanicals when the service reports on Indigenous procurement, and Reef Safe Australia for swim days, camps and coastal excursions — with the Sunshine Station and Sun Safety Board turning the sunscreen into a daily routine.

Compare the full range, register or log in for B2B pricing, and choose invoice or pay direct at workcoreaustralia.com.au.

Always read the label and follow the directions for use. Sunscreens are only one part of sun protection. Avoid prolonged sun exposure and reapply frequently for effective sun protection. Visit workcoreaustralia.com.au for product information, B2B pricing and supporting documentation.

Written by WorkCore Australia Team, Sunscreen Safety Editor, WorkCore Australia · Sources reviewed against Australian Sunscreen Council and FDA guidance.

Published: 2026 · WorkCore Australia