The present invention generally relates to safe and stable sunscreen compositions comprising of at least one sunscreen active ingredient in the form of an inert sol-gel microcapsules encapsulating ultraviolet absorbing compounds in any acceptable cosmetic vehicle. The composition according to the present invention can comprise several ultraviolet absorbers that may be encapsulated in the same sol-gel microcapsule or in different capsules. The hydophobicity/hydrophilicity character of the sol-gel microcapsules can be controlled by selecting suitable sol-gel precursors and suitable reaction conditions and can be chosen to be compatible with the cosmetic vehicle to be used in the sunscreen composition, thus, the present invention facilitates an easy incorporation of the composite sol-gel encapsulated sunscreen in all types of cosmetic vehicles including oil free compositions, with no necessary steps of heating or high shear forces. The sunscreen compositions of the present invention can comprise any acceptable UVA and/or UVB absorbing compounds at any desired ratio to obtain a desired accumulative ultraviolet screening spectrum.