With Ulta Beauty Partnership, Naked Sundays Is The Latest Australian Sun Care Brand Expanding Stateside

Sun care brands born in Australia, a country with among the highest rates of skin cancer in the world and a robust sunscreen manufacturing sector, are charging into the United States, the largest market for sunscreen globally.

Naked Sundays is the latest Australian brand to make headway in the U.S. Starting today, it’s rolling out to 700 Ulta Beauty stores after launching in the U.S. and 900-plus Target stores a year ago. The brand is also available at 1,200 Shoppers Drug Mart stores in Canada. Naked Sundays’ products offer a minimum of SPF 50 protection, and those entering Ulta are priced from $22 to $35, including Go + Glow Lip Oil, Glow Drops, Bronze Drops and Blush Serum.

Naked Sundays has registered triple-digit sales growth year-over-year since its launch in 2021, and its retail sales skyrocketed 2,479% in 2024. The brand’s business is evenly split between retail and direct-to-consumer, though founder Samantha Brett, a journalist-turned-beauty entrepreneur, anticipates the split shifting toward retail with the Ulta expansion. Venture capital firm XRC Ventures is a minority investor in Naked Sundays.

Another Australian sun care player, Ultra Violette, has landed in American retail via 592 Sephora stores with products priced from $22 to $40, including Sheen Screen SPF 50 Hydrating Lip Balm and U.S. exclusive Vibrant Screen. The publication Women’s Wear Daily cited industry sources projecting the brand is on track to generate $33 million in net sales this year, with the U.S. accounting for up to $8.5 million of that amount. It received a $10 million investment from Aria Growth Partners last year to fuel North American expansion.

Nostalgia-seeped Aussie brand Standard Procedure premiered in the U.S. at e-tailers Revolve and FWRD last year. Founder Zepha Johnson’s parents operate Australian sun care manufacturer Concept Labs. The brand, which celebrates that it’s Australian-made sun care, has secured investment from VC firm Willow Growth Partners, and Francois Bonin, former president of skincare brand Naturium, recently became its interim president. Standard Procedure is available in Sephora stores across Australia and New Zealand.

In the U.S., beauty retailers and Australian brands are trying to cash in on sunscreen market that’s heating up. According to Grand View Research, it was valued at $14.35 billion in 2023 and is projected to accelerate at a compound annual growth rate of 6.1% from 2024 to 2030. The market research firm attributes the acceleration to consumer awareness of the importance of protecting skin from harmful ultraviolet rays to prevent skin damage, premature aging and skin cancer.

As skincare consumers cotton on to sun care being an effective skin preserver, the Australian brands speak the language of beauty to catch their interest and trade in sun care products that cross over into makeup, an intersection that sun care exemplar Supergoop has tread to great effect. Ultra Violette was founded by Mecca alums Ava Matthews and Bec Jefferd, who stretched the brand abroad in 2021 with a launch at Space NK. In its home country, Ultra Violette is sold at Sephora. Naked Sundays is available at Mecca.

Ina Subramanian, a longtime beauty marketing executives with stops at Fur, Codex Beauty and Soleil Toujours, says, “Traditionally, [sunscreen] was marketed and thought of as a functional necessity, something you throw on at the beach or when you remember, but Australian brands are elevating sunscreen into a far more revered step in skincare similar to how serums or moisturizers are perceived. Brands like Ultra Violette and Naked Sundays are capitalizing on this, positioning SPF as a daily indulgence rather than a seasonal afterthought.”

She adds, “We’re at an inflection point where beauty and wellness are converging, and sunscreen sits squarely at that intersection. Consumers want the most efficacious products with high-quality formulations that don’t just protect but also enhance their skin. Australian suncare brands check all those boxes, and I don’t see their momentum slowing down anytime soon.”

Naked Sundays came to market in 2021 with Hydrating Glow Face Mist, a product that combines sun protection with makeup setting spray qualities, and it sold out within two weeks. The brand made its debut in Mecca the same year with four products, and shoppers promptly snapped up three months’ worth of stock in 24 hours. Today, one Hydrating Glow Face Mist is sold every minute around the globe, according to Brett, meaning 525,600 units are sold in a year.

Reflecting on the beginning of Naked Sundays, Brett says, “I saw this huge gap in the market for a cool, young sunscreen that could be worn with, over or instead of makeup. Sunscreen really at the time was only talking to drugstore, supermarket-style sunscreens, and that stigma of white sticky greasy [texture] was still there.”

Naked Sundays releases about 10 products per year. Last year, the brand launched what it says is the world’s first SPF Bronzing and Illuminating Drops and first Blush Serum. The Bronzing and Illuminating Drops have gone viral on social media and sold out seven times since launch. More makeup-meets-suncare innovation will be introduced in the next 12 months.

“Naked Sundays has really taken over and created a new category of makeup, skincare and SPF together, whereas no other SPF brands are playing in that space,” says Brett. “My aim is to have everyone wearing a full face of Naked Sundays.”

CabanaClear Water Gel Serum has been an unexpected viral hit for Naked Sundays. The brand asserts it’s the only water-based, non-silicone clear sunscreen gel on the market. It went viral on Amazon and TikTok last year after a TikToker with the handle @carewithkate posted a 31-second video slathering it on that’s garnered 3.3 million views. On TikTok, Naked Sundays racked up over 37 million likes in 2024, up 1,000% from 2023.

Product seeding and word of mouth are Naked Sundays’ marketing bread and butter. The brand seeds products to over 3,000 influencers per year. It dabbles in paid influencer partnerships, but only after it has built organic relationships with the influencers involved. Big influencers like Alix Earle and Mikayla Nogueira have posted about Naked Sundays. Brett says, “I always say the best sunscreen is the one you wear, and the best ambassadors for us are the people who wear our sunscreens and they wear it every single day.”

Her ambitions are to grow Naked Sundays into a billion-dollar brand in the next 10 years, with 100% growth per year. She says, “We are at the forefront of SPF innovation on a global scale, and we want to continually be there.”