SPF’s moment in the sun shows no sign of setting.
If brands like Coola and Supergoop helped consumers consider sunscreen as more than just a drug-store standby, today, labels like Vacation, Ultra Violette, and Beauty of Joseon are cementing its status as a market-driving beauty product. In 2023, the volume of Google searches for skincare with SPF increased by over 63 percent — more than any other searched skin claim, according to consumer data analytics firm Spate. Meanwhile, Prime Matter Labs, a US-based cosmetic manufacturer specialising in sun care, says 2023 was a record year for sunscreen requests from both new and existing clients. Social media-forward beauty labels including Naked Sundays, Sol de Janeiro, and Kosas all have launched SPF products within the past 12 months.
Because SPF’s beautified reinvention is years underway, online conversation around sunscreen today is more sophisticated, focusing on insider nuances in both cosmetic finishes and technical benefits. That increased knowledge has sparked US interest in foreign formulas, where there are limits on FDA-approved filters. Sunscreens with newer filters from Korean brands Beauty of Joseon, Round Lab, Tocobo, and Isntree, which are available to US shoppers through third-party sellers on Amazon, have gone viral on TikTok, producing a robust counterfeit market.
“When I started practising 20 years ago, patients would still tan and say they knew they should wear sunscreen but didn’t [wear it],” says New York City dermatologist Cybele Fishman, MD. “I now hear young women say ‘I’m obsessed with my sunscreen’ or ‘I never go in the sun’ or ‘I use moisturiser with sunscreen and then put sunscreen on top of that.’”
At the same time, however, anti-sunscreen discourse online is brewing. Content creators and some celebrities spread misinformation that sunscreen is “toxic” and can cause hormone disruption and cancer, and that the sun has natural healing capabilities that should never be blocked.
“There’s a lot of viral noise about the anti-sunscreen movement and there’s a side of the internet that subscribes to that, too,” says Bec Jefferd, co-founder of Australian sunscreen brand Ultra Violette. ” It’s a viral topic no matter which way you look at it.”
Sunscreen proponents far outnumber the naysayers, and that means for beauty brands, getting sunscreen right can come with rewards, even in a category with notoriously expensive upfront costs. Just look at Vacation, the three-year-old US sunscreen brand, which anticipates sales will hit over $40 million in 2024, more than double what it did in 2023. Three-year-old Australian sunscreen brand Naked Sundays sales grew 800 percent in 2023; it immediately sold out of three months’ worth of stock after launching in Target in March. Brands are seeing these sorts of boom moments thanks to innovation in texture and meeting the needs of more educated sunscreen consumers.
“We’re not in a world where people just care about brand or celebrity endorsement anymore,” said Charlotte Palermino, the founder of the skincare brand Dieux and a New York City-based beauty influencer, adding that her content around sunscreen is among her most popular. “What’s making it cool, more than anything, is that it works.”
