Our kids got into a pickle with suncream. So we invented a solution

Times

21-06-2025

Laura Waters was 14 when a hospital consultant told her not to have any grand ambitions because her epileptic seizures would make her 'unemployable'.
'That stuck with me,' Waters said. She left school at 17 and felt 'lucky' to get an admin job in the civil service, but was sacked after the seizures returned and she had to take time off. Waters later won an unfair dismissal case in the High Court.
Being unemployed took its toll on her finances and at one point she was 'so broke' she couldn't afford to feed both herself and her young daughter.
Fast-forward to today and Waters, 42, and her friend, Kelli Aspland, 46, run Solar Buddies, a child-friendly suncream applicator business that had sales of £7 million last year, with pre-tax profits of £1.9 million. Solar Buddies, which is stocked in most major UK retailers, just launched in 114 Target stores in the US, and grew revenues from £1.3 million to £7 million in two years after a TikTok-fuelled sales boom.
The company, which ships around the world from Cwmbran, south Wales, has also secured backing from Dragons' Den's Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones — who bought a 20 per cent stake for £80,000 in 2023 — and Welsh entrepreneur Hayley Parsons, founder of GoCompare. 'It's a little bit mind-blowing,' Waters said. 'I feel very fortunate,'
It all began with sunburn and sticky uniforms. Waters and Aspland met through their children, whose school had a no-touch policy, preventing teachers from reapplying suncream. One day, Aspland, a mother of four, received a phone call saying: 'You should see the state of your kids'.
'The older one had tried to help the younger one because the teacher couldn't, and they just got sunscreen everywhere,' she said. 'I thought: 'What can I give my child to protect themselves?' I want them to get into happy habits of reapplying suncream every few hours.'
It was 2011 and Aspland, who was training to be a nurse, raised the issue with Waters at a playdate. 'We looked on Google to see if there was anything out there that could help [kids] apply suncream in an easier manner, and there wasn't,' Waters said. 'Kelli turned around and said: 'Shall we have a go at doing something?' I thought she was joking, then I realised she was being deadly serious. We'd only known each other three weeks at this point, but we dived in feet first.'
They experimented, taking apart beauty products to see how they worked. 'We thought: 'As a parent, what would we actually want?'' Aspland said. After months of deliberation, they landed on the Solar Buddie: a refillable, brightly coloured 100ml bottle with a patented 'rollerball sponge' applicator, specifically designed for a child's grip and mess-free application.
Aspland made detailed drawings, but the pair needed help building a replicable prototype. They approached Cardiff Metropolitan University, which recruited product design students to help as part of their degree.
'At first we thought we'd just sell the concept… then it became really stimulating,' Aspland said. 'I've got four children and Laura's got three, and we just needed to do something different. So we decided: let's create a business.'
By 2014, the founders had a prototype up and running. They reached out to GoCompare's Parsons for advice and managed to land £30,000 in angel investment. Parsons has said that she loved 'the girls and their ambition and drive'. This, plus £12,500 from Waters' stepfather, Martin Turner, covered the costs of building a website and getting the first batch of Solar Buddies manufactured in China.
They launched online in 2015 and everything 'snowballed from there'. Local paper coverage offered free publicity, and the team scored a listing with JoJo Maman Bébé in early 2016 after Waters contacted Laura Tenison, the founder of the upmarket baby clothes retailer, on social media. 'I was quite happy to pick up the phone and be quite ballsy,' Waters said. 'Luckily it paid off. Tenison replied, saying: 'I love it, get in contact with our head buyer'.'
They started selling suncreams and looked to expand to sunnier climes, listing on Amazon and securing an Australian distributor.
Then Covid-19 hit. 'Everything just stopped. We thought: 'What on earth are we going to do?' The best thing that ever happened to us was getting a Bounce Back Loan [from the government], because we would not have survived without it,' said Aspland.
The turning point came in 2021 when — unprompted — a US-based TikTok influencer showcased a Solar Buddie with her 500,000 followers that she had bought on Amazon. 'Our business just went crazy overnight,' Waters said. 'We had to move units to accommodate demand. It was a bit bananas,' added Aspland.
Other influencers have followed suit. 'People probably think it's a bit of a gimmick when they buy it, and then they use it and think 'I need to tell people about this'. And TikTok is perfect for seeing the product being used,' said Waters.
In 2022-23, Solar Buddies hit £4.1 million in sales, of which about 80 per cent were from the US. The founders had appeared on Buy Me Now, the Channel 4 show, and Aspland thought it was time to take up an earlier offer to appear on Dragons' Den. 'America was doing so well, and we just thought what a great platform to give ourselves another push.'
The Dragons' capital and expertise helped Solar Buddies hone a forward-ordering plan and find a retail agent, who secured them listings in Tesco, Ocado, Asda and Boots.
Crucially, Meaden and Jones joined at a crunch point. On paper, 2023-24 was Solar Buddies' best year, with investment secured and orders pouring in. But both founders experienced burnout. 'We [both] had family issues, and it was hard to keep your focus on work and deal with that as well,' Aspland said. 'It became too much,' Waters added.
The founders credit Meaden with supporting them through that period, including insisting that they shouldn't feel guilty for taking time off. 'It's very difficult to come back from burnout,' Waters said.
Defending their product has also proven an enormous challenge. Despite securing patents for the device early on, Solar Buddies has faced multiple 'copycat' attempts, with rivals offering knock-off versions at lower prices online. 'Amazon will pull them down and within a few days they're back up again,' Aspland said. It is 'particularly frustrating' when customers buy knock-offs, then contact Solar Buddies to demand a refund when the product breaks or leaks in their bags, she said.
The founders spent about £60,000 last year alone on patent cases. Aspland said they just won a court case in China that means any copycat product passing through customs 'will be destroyed immediately'.
The company now employs 13 people and the founders are hoping for another US-led sales bump. In mid-2024, a Target agent approached the team after spotting Solar Buddies on TikTok, and the product will expand into more than 2,000 US stores next year, Waters said.
Solar Buddies is also looking to capitalise on surging awareness of the health and anti-ageing advantages of using high SPF sunscreen daily. The founders have expanded their range to cater to older customers who 'need non-sticky hands', including golfers and climbers, and launched a fake tan product. 'There's much more awareness of SPF now than there was back in 2015,' Aspland said. 'We can now sell to the whole family.'
Waters has been seizure-free for 19 years with medication, and the founders are excited for the future. They also want to help make it easier for other female entrepreneurs to launch successful businesses. 'We really struggled at the beginning, so we want to help other similar start-ups,' said Aspland. 'Everyone is capable of anything they want… If you have an idea — just try.'
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