When Sarah Wilkie moved from Carlsbad, Calif., to Marietta, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, seven years ago, she brought along Sunforgettable Powder Sunscreen, a product of Carlsbad-based company Colorescience, as a keepsake.
Whenever she was out and about, she’d apply the sunscreen to her three children. “Every time I went somewhere, someone would say, ‘What is that?’ I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Colorescience,’” recounts Wilkie, who’s been a chiropractor for two decades. “I feel like I sold thousands of them. I was their biggest promoter.”
Together with Kerri Faber, a mom of triplets, friend, patient and former VP of human resources at Rubicon, where she incorporated Wilkie’s wellness services, Wilkie began pondering the idea of creating a family-friendly, affordable and playful version of Sunforgettable. She figured it would be a great option for parents battling to put sunscreen on their kids.
“We believe in keeping it real. We are moms with three kids. Sun protection for us needs to be effective, safe and fun,” says Wilkie. “I just think everyone can relate. Sunscreen is such a nightmare with kids, with the crying and the stinging eyes. That’s why we just wanted to simplify things. There had to be a way to protect our skin that was easy and not a struggle.”
Wilkie presumed it wouldn’t be that hard to nail down a manufacturer to make the clean powder sunscreen she and Faber were seeking. So, she started contacting manufacturers. And contacting more. And contacting more. All told, Wilkie estimates she called hundreds of manufacturers.
“We are moms with three kids. Sun protection for us needs to be effective, safe and fun.”
Finally, she says, “I get a call in January saying, ‘Hi, I’m so and so from the manufacturer.’ It didn’t ring a bell because I had called so many. I looked at my call log and said, ‘Oh my goodness, I left you a message in November and explained we are looking for loose mineral sunscreen with SPF,’ and she said, ‘I can do that for you.’ I said, ‘I don’t think you understand. We are looking for loose mineral sunscreen with SPF,’ and she said, ‘We can do that.’ When you hear no so many times, you don’t understand what it is like to hear yes.” The manufacturer turned out to be 15 miles from Wilkie.
The lone yes led to Wilkie’s and Faber’s sun care brand Larkly launching last year, roughly four years after the pair set out to develop it. It has two stockkeeping units: SPF 30 Mineral Powder Sunscreen priced at $32 for a .21-oz. size and SPF 30 Mineral Powder Sunscreen Refill priced at $17 for the same size. The formula leaves out ingredients found in sunscreen powders on clean beauty no-no lists like dimethicone and retinyl palmitate, and loads up on skin-boosting ceramides and vitamin E in addition to the titanium dioxide and zinc oxide that shield users from ultraviolet rays.
“I wanted to make the gold standard of sun care that wasn’t only protecting your skin, but was nourishing your skin,” says Wilkie. “That’s what I do in my practice. I look at the whole body and am proactive about it.”
Wilkie and Faber were proactive about Larkly’s design, too. The brand couldn’t be shy, they reasoned, or it wouldn’t have widespread appeal. Named for the lark, a bird Wilkie points out is unique because it sings in flight, the brand features bright greens, pinks and yellows, and loopy lines. Wilkie says, “We want to convey that life is a journey, and Larkly is there for wherever it takes you.”
“I wanted to make the gold standard of sun care that wasn’t only protecting your skin, but was nourishing your skin.”
Wilkie’s journey is fueled by a ton of hustle. Now that calling manufacturers is behind her, she sends out 100 to 200 emails a week to influencers, editors and retailers. One of her emails reached Nordstrom, and the department store decided to introduce the brand for a pop-up last summer. Within the first month of the product being at its locations, Larkly sold out twice.
Currently in stock at Nordstrom, the brand is spreading its retail wings. Next up for it is Lemon Laine and a major lifestyle specialty retail chain. Not surprisingly, Wilkie won’t stop there. She specifies the retailers Follain, The Detox Market, Sephora, Bluemercury, Dermstore and Ulta Beauty as dream distribution partners. No doubt, the emails have already been sent.
Larkly’s SPF 30 Mineral Powder Sunscreen retails for less than half of Sunforgettable’s price, but Wilkie suggests she wasn’t aiming for that to happen. “We never in a million years said, ‘For $32, what can we make?’ We said, ‘How can we formulate the most amazing sunscreen in powder form?’ Then, we were like, ‘Oh shoot, what are we going to charge for this?’ We don’t have the biggest margins,” she says. “They are slimmer than 70% to 80%. We went with a 50% margin on the best day.”
The price helps Larkly facilitate regular purchasing aligned with its message that sunscreen should be reapplied often and worn no matter the season. In a sun care business attempting to break out of its dependence on summer, Wilkie credits Supergoop, Sun Bum and other brands preceding Larkly with spreading the word that sun protection shouldn’t be limited to a single season. She senses younger consumers grasp the value of sun protection year-round. While Larkly conjured up a consumer avatar of a 36-year-old mom with two kids, Wilkie says twenty somethings highly interested in preventing signs of aging and skin cancer are gravitating to the brand.
Wilkie and Faber each invested $50,000 to bring self-funded Larkly to market. At the moment, they’re focused on building brand awareness and growing the product range over driving sales. Before the end of the year, Larkly expects to expand its assortment. Wilkie underscores, “We are going to innovate for sunscreen to be cool instead of everyone associating it with a struggle.”
To her fellow beauty entrepreneurs, Wilkie advises not letting early challenges derail their dreams. “If you want the product or the service, I guarantee you somebody else does, so you got to go for it,” she says. “At the end of the day, it’s about perseverance and grit. Everyone wants that boom. They want a product that’s going to sell right away. You have to know this is a marathon. If you believe in it, you keep going for it.”
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