Entrepreneur Puts Flash Into New Sunscreen
When sun worshipers slather on gobs of sunscreen to help safely bronze their bodies, few ever stop to think about the little plastic bottles filled with white goop.
But veteran cosmetics industry executive Jim Headley has set out to change all that. He wants to take those drab brown or green suntan lotion bottles and turn them into trendy beach fashion accessories.
“All the people are buying the bottles for what they do,” Headley said in an interview at his Fountain Valley home. “All the bottles look the same. I said, ‘What if we put some fashion into those things so that the colors match the swimsuits?’ ”
Headley did some market research by taking long strolls along the beach, where he noticed lots of neon-colored swimsuits and scores of serious sunbathers with large spray bottles of water by their sides. So he decided to try to incorporate both trends into his own line of sunscreens.
His research complete, he set out to package his bottles of tanning oil in big spray bottles featuring eye-catching neon colors.
The result is Beach-it Tanning Oils Inc., a Huntington Beach start-up company that is producing one of numerous new “sun products” that will be showing up on retail shelves this summer. While proclaiming that the sunscreen is as good as any on the market, Headley is counting on Beach-it’s innovative packaging to distinguish his product from the competitors.
“I think they’re going to buy this for the color,” he said as he admired one of the soda can-size plastic bottles with large, black spray tops.
While some major department store chains are predicting strong sales for sun-care products, competition will be fierce as established companies introduce a raft of new products that are designed to appeal to consumers who are concerned about the unhealthful effects of long-term exposure to the sun.
At twice the size of most other sunscreen bottles, Beach-it certainly stands out. But the product’s 12-ounce bottle also carries a larger price: $10 to $15, depending on the sun-protection-factor level. But Headley asserts that Beach-it is competitive with similar products on a price-per-ounce basis.
The sunscreen went on sale Friday at the Nordstrom store at South Coast Plaza. Though short on advertising dollars, the company kicked off the product with a promotion that featured off-duty Huntington Beach lifeguards posing for photos with Beach-it buyers. The company also plans to sponsor a junior lifeguard competition in Huntington Beach later this year.
Headley, a cosmetics business consultant and former sales executive with Cosmair and Estee Lauder, said he plans to stock the product in surf shops and has representatives working other markets around the country. He hopes for first-year sales of $500,000 and plans to introduce other sun-care products next summer.
He tried to get major surfwear manufacturers such as Quiksilver and Body Glove to market the product under their well-known names but was told that they either had other affiliations or were not interested. So, Headley said, he struck out on his own.
He hired a graphic artist to design the surf-oriented logo and a chemist to develop a sunscreen formula scented with a gardenia fragrance. Headley also contracted with a bottle manufacturer to produce the orange, lime and magenta neon colors he wanted.
