Before celebrating its second birthday in October, Black Girl Sunscreen has made it to the beauty retail big leagues.
The emerging sun protection brand landed on Target’s website in April before rolling out to select stores a month later in several states, including California, Florida, New York and Texas. The retail expansion isn’t the only milestone BGS crossed recently. It also added a second product, Kids SPF 50 Moisturizing Sunscreen Lotion For Face And Body, to its merchandise lineup that had been previously limited to a single stockkeeping unit.
“The reason why we’re here is we’ve had time to develop Black Girl Sunscreen, give it a personality and nurture it,” says BGS founder Shontay Lundy. “We started with one SKU whereas some companies start with four, five SKUs. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but, with the one SKU, it’s given us time to nurture and really develop the product, so I’m not in any rush to say, ‘Hey, here’s another three SKUs.’”
Dreamed up in Miami by Lundy, who couldn’t stand the gunky sunscreen that left her skin covered in white residue she was forced to resort to when venturing to the city’s beaches, BGS quickly gained a reputation for its ultra-sheer formula. A glowing Reddit review and pieces in Refinery29, Teen Vogue, Marie Claire and more following up on that review caused the brand to go viral shortly after it launched. The buzz reached retailers.
BGS came on the sun protection scene as a debate was raging about whether people of color should wear sunscreen. That debate was picked up on last month by an article in The New York Times that called into question the link between skin cancer and sun exposure for black people. The article, however, points out the American Academy of Dermatology’s position that everyone, regardless of skin tone, should wear sunscreen and mentions that everyone, regardless of skin tone, gets sunburned.
Lundy is incredibly familiar with the ongoing debate. Her answer to it is to promote sunscreen wear as a beneficial habit to combat skin damage. BGS is “educating the community about sun protection. You have the message that black people don’t need to protect their skin because of melanin. So, that’s the first hurdle,” says Lundy. “But I think, with creating brand awareness, [it’s about] tackling that misconception and talking about why we need it. Our community wasn’t thinking about buying sunscreen and, now, they are. At least now, we’re able to have this healthy debate or healthy conversation about which sunscreen to purchase.”
“We started with one SKU whereas some companies start with four, five SKUs. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but, with the one SKU, it’s given us time to nurture and really develop the product.”
The sunscreen conversation is domestic as well as international. In addition to BGS breaking into Target domestically, it kicked off a partnership earlier this year with CasaBella International, an independent pharmacy and beauty chain in Nigeria. “I think Nigeria is just starting to come around to social media,” says Lundy. “We’ve tapped into their influencers. That’s been really, really cool for the brand image [and] for the market to see that these women are behind the product.”
Customers have been extremely enthusiastic about BGS’s flagship product, Moisturizing Sunscreen Lotion SPF 30, which is sold at CasaBella stores. “Women are like, ‘Hey, we’ve been looking for this. Where have you been? We want to protect our skin, too,’” says Lundy. “It’s a multipurpose product. So, we protect from sunburn, from skin cancer. Those are the health reasons why you would wear a sunscreen but, on the cosmetic side, you would wear an SPF daily to prevent hyperpigmentation, dark spots [and] fine lines.”
As BGS spreads, Lundy’s observed sizable companies take notice of its message. “You never saw a person of color in a sunscreen ad and, now, they’re using the verbiage of ‘ashy.’ They’ve adapted the language, and that’s really interesting to see because this is something that we started,” she says. “It’s not even one company that’s a competitor. It’s now all the traditional companies that are competitors because they now see that there’s a market. They now see that people of color are interested in and do care about their skin and are capable of purchasing a sun care product.”
Despite massive companies treading on its territory, Lundy senses there remains plenty of room for her brand to grow. “We still need to create that awareness because there’s still so many people that have no idea about Black Girl Sunscreen,” she says, noting that BGS is self-funded. “I always try to do everything that I can myself. I think, eventually, in order to grow the size that I’d like to grow, some type of outside funding is required.”
How large does Lundy believe BGS can get? “We want Black Girl Sunscreen to be available to everyone that wants to get their hands on it, everyone that wants to protect their skin,” she says. “It’s just a matter of being consistent in our results and not taking on so much so fast. I think that consistency is probably a more important thing than growing. [It’s about] consistently getting results, consistently showing up.”
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