6 Indie Sun-Care Brands That Are Revamping Sunscreen For a New Generation – Latest Fashion Trends & Style Tips July 08, 2025 at 05:30PM
📰 6 Indie Sun-Care Brands That Are Revamping Sunscreen For a New Generation
✨ Fashion Insights & Trends:
With goopy textures, visible white casts and unpleasant smells, sunscreens often get a bad rap, despite being every dermatologist's non-negotiable in a morning skin-care routine. But a crop of independent sun-care brands are on a mission to overhaul the category, putting an end to common SPF woes with innovative formulas, transparent finishes and elevated scents fit for modern beauty consumers.
Leading SPF's rebrand, Black Girl Sunscreen formulates sun care specifically for melanated skin, while Standard Procedure applies Australia-approved filters to its high-performance SPF 50+ products. Indie sun-care brands are also increasingly spotlighting skin-care ingredients, as seen in Good Weather Skin's sea buckthorn oil-powered sunscreen and Lightsaver's squalane-packed mineral SPF.
If you still need further convincing to slather on your sun care year round, take it from board-certified dermatologist and Lightsaver founder Dr. David Kim: "Sunscreen is hands down the best anti-aging skin-care product you can ever use."
Ahead, check out six independent sun-care brands revamping the SPF space for all skin types and tones.
Beame
Photo: Courtesy of Beame
Eniye Okah grew up in a household where "sunscreen wasn't seen as necessary." "Like [in] many Black families, we were taught that melanin was enough," she tells Fashionista. But as chronic stress disrupted Okah's skin with heightened sensitivity and breakouts, she realized how vulnerable stressed skin is to sun damage. After noticing a lack of inclusive sun-care brands, Okah founded Beame, an "on-the-go" sunscreen brand prioritizing seamless reapplication.
Encased in Gen Z-approved vibrant packaging complete with its own flower-shaped mascot, Beame launched on Kickstarter in September 2024 with Something You Mist, an SPF 30 reapplication mist specifically formulated for melanin-rich skin, later followed by its Under The Spotlight UV Detection Stickers. (While the stickers are available for purchase in the U.S., unfortunately the sunscreen mist is currently available only to U.K. shoppers.) The emerging U.K.-based brand is focused on building community via its social media platforms and exploring potential retail partnerships. In response to clinical sun-care options with heavy white casts, Beame's transparent finish, bright colors and fruity floral scent also aim to emphasize "emotional well-being."
"Beame is the first brand blending sun protection with emotional well-being, using psychodermatology as part of our formulation ethos," Okah says. "We're also unapologetically inclusive, not just in our visuals but in how we formulate, test and talk. It's sun care that fits into your lifestyle, supports reapplication on the go and brings a little fun to your routine."
Products to try:
Something You Mist Reapplication Face Mist SPF 30, £25 ($34), available here (in the U.K. only)
Under the Spotlight UV Detection Stickers, £10 ($14), available here
Black Girl Sunscreen
Photo: Courtesy of Black Girl Sunscreen
Shontay Lundy noticed a gap in the beauty industry for sunscreen specifically tailored to darker skin tones, so she founded Black Girl Sunscreen in 2016 for women of color to still have sun protection without having to worry about chalky white casts. Lundy first entered the sun-care space with Black Girl Sunscreen SPF 30, a hydrating formula with a completely clear finish, and soon expanded into a children's SPF line, a mattifying face SPF and a mineral SPF 50.
With prices under $25, Black Girl Sunscreen's stockist list boasts major retailers such as Ulta, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Macy's, Walmart and more. It was also the first independent Black-owned sun-care brand to be stocked at Target in 2019.
Black Girl Sunscreen also works to educate and debunk myths that melanated skin doesn't need SPF, since even those with higher melanin levels are still vulnerable to sun damage (such as hyperpigmentation, increased fine lines and potential skin cancer). According to the brand, one of its defining values is "ensuring that every person of color feels seen, valued and included in the conversation about sun care."
Products to try:
Make It Matte Sunscreen SPF 45, $18, available here
Make It Glow Continuous Spray SPF 30, $16, available here
Make It Pop Lip Sun Gloss SPF 50, $11, available here
Dune Suncare
Photo: Courtesy of Dune Suncare
Frustrated by the lack of innovation, accessibility and inclusivity in America's sun-care space, Emily Doyle and Mei Kwok set out to launch Dune, the first clear gel sun-care line in the U.S. The duo noticed clear SPF formulas surging in popularity in the Korean and Japanese beauty markets, and decided to bring the skin-tone-inclusive gel formula stateside. Today, Dune is stocked at Ulta, Nordstrom, Bluemercury, Goop, Anthropologie and more.
Dune's gel-serum SPFs The Bod Guard and The Mug Guard are some of its most popular products, which Doyle attributes to the formulas' non-sticky texture and 72-hour hydration. Priced under $35, Dune's dermatologist-recommended sun-care offerings are also safe for sensitive and acne-prone skin. Along with additional fragrances soon joining Dune's signature sea salt scent, the brand is also looking to enter new categories next year to further widen its audience.
"We are focused on product first by providing inclusive, innovative products for all — not marketing ploys — as product is paramount, especially as we're offering OTC drug products in the U.S. and have a responsibility first and foremost to our consumers' health," Doyle says. "So it's safe to say, we do not focus on creating trend-driven SKUs that will go viral on TikTok."
Products to try:
The Bod Guard, $25, available here
The Melt Mist, $35, available here
The Golden Guard, $30, available here
Good Weather Skin
Photo: Courtesy of Good Weather Skin
After teaming up to create the sunscreen they had been searching for, former colleagues Franchesca Hashim and Alexandra Spunt launched Good Weather Skin's flagship product: The One Daily Sun Cream, a hydrating mineral SPF 30 aiming to shift sunscreen's image from "merely functional to being lifestyle-oriented." It's packed with skin-care ingredients to support the skin's natural collagen production and improve texture, including squalane, peptides, niacinamide and sea buckthorn oil (which gives the SPF its buttery color).
At the brand's core, it's leading the charge to position mineral sunscreen as a "luxurious" part of every skin-care routine. Good Weather Skin initially launched in Nordstrom this spring, and is now looking to expand into nationwide boutiques, hotels and other retailers. Though mineral formulations present extra hurdles during the formulation process, Hashim and Spunt chose a mineral filter due to its "reputation as the gold standard in the industry."
"We've taken a different approach by creating a mineral sunscreen that people genuinely enjoy using every day," the founders said. "We solved the biggest problems with typical mineral sunscreens — the white cast, thick texture and unpleasant feel — by developing a formula that blends effortlessly on all skin tones while leaving skin looking radiant, not chalky."
Products to try:
The One Daily Sun Cream, $48, available here
Lightsaver
Photo: Courtesy of Lightsaver
After encountering many patients who loathed applying sunscreen every day due to thick textures and unpleasant scents, board-certified dermatologist Dr. David Kim made it his mission to change the narrative on SPF. Enter Lightsaver: a lightweight mineral sun-care brand formulated with skin-care ingredients like niacinamide, squalane, centella asiatica and green tea extract.
"I wanted to innovate in the mineral SPF space because that's where innovation was really lacking," Dr. Kim says. "I knew it was going to be challenging, and it took almost three years to formulate our first product." In addition to its hero product — Activated Mineral Sunscreen SPF 33 in Tinted and Shade 0 — Lightsaver recently launched its Triplesome Serum Sunscreen, a silky mineral SPF 40 in two shades.
With Dr. Kim clocking in as the brand's sole employee, Lightsaver heavily leans into social media marketing to build its community and engage with fellow SPF fans. "As a new brand, creating brand awareness is crucial but it's expensive and we have to be creative and agile especially in this climate," he notes. Lightsaver counts Sephora as its exclusive retail partner, with the emerging brand emphasizing collaborating with retailers "who understand and appreciate the importance of sun protection."
Products to try:
Triplesome Serum Sunscreen SPF 40 Tinted, $55, available here
Activated Mineral Sunscreen SPF 33 Tinted, $45, available here
Activated Mineral Sunscreen SPF 33 Shade 0, $45, available here
Standard Procedure
Photo: Courtesy of Standard Procedure
Zepha Jackson comes from a family of Australian sunscreen makers. Though following in their footsteps wasn't her initial plan (she instead pursued fashion and manufacturing overseas), Jackson noticed how effective Australian SPF was compared to its global counterparts and decided to take Aussie sun care international. Backed by more than 40 years of sunscreen formulation experience, Standard Procedure offers high-performance SPF 50+ products: "We take the science seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously," Jackson shares.
Standard Procedure embraces nostalgia-inspired branding, referencing '70s aesthetics throughout its marketing, and primarily uses social media to display its products in their natural environments, i.e. on surfboards, in carry-ons and at festivals. With a host of brand collaborations under its belt (see: Zara, Zimmermann, Sephora, Qantas, The Frankie Shop and Revolve), Standard Procedure also focuses on building its audience through these brand-aligned partnerships that help it "show up in fun and unexpected places."
"For us, the best sunscreen is the one you'll actually wear — consistently, generously and with confidence that it's doing what it says it does," Jackson says. "That's the lens we use when formulating."
Products to try:
SPF 50+ Sunscreen, $30, available here
SPF 50+ Lip Balm, $9, available here
Aloe Vera Gel, $20, available here
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