Primally Pure’s Ad Campaign Calling Sunscreen “Poison” Provokes Beauty Industry Outrage—Purposefully
Primally Pure’s advertising campaign provocatively proclaiming its new sunscreen Sun Cream SPF 30 is “100% poison-free” and, “The sun isn’t poison, but your sunscreen is,” was created to instigate discussion—and it certainly has, with beauty industry insiders, social media critics and even a dermatologist featured in the campaign, Teo Soleymani, condemning the brand for stoking fear about sunscreen usage as it tries to sell sunscreen.
“This is an extremely dangerous message that promotes unsafe sun safety behaviors, which have time and time again been linked to skin cancers like melanoma which are deadly,” writes dermatologist Kunal Malik, who uses the handle @dermdocmalik, on a Primally Pure Instagram post. “Rather than use this fear mongering approach of ‘toxic sunscreens’ in general, why not focus on the positives of your product instead? Extremely disappointing and irresponsible.” The skincare influencer with the handle @sambythecounter writes, “You know this is blatant false advertising, right? Absolutely disgraceful.”
Soleymani, a surgeon who removes melanoma with the Mohs micrographic surgery technique and was on Primally Pure’s podcast “Grounded Wellness” about a week ago in an episode entitled, “Is The Sun Really The Enemy? What a Skin Cancer Surgeon Wants You to Know,” informed Kirbie Johnson, journalist, writer of Substack “Ahead of the Kirb” and “Gloss Angeles” podcast co-host, that he’s asked the brand to undo his association with the campaign. The campaign initially used quotes from him that have since been erased from social media.
In a video posted on Instagram, Soleymani says, “This company took my background to run an anti-sunscreen campaign, which, ironically, the billboard and advertisement is selling a zinc heavy mineral sunscreen…Regardless, I don’t like their position in my association with it.” He adds, “While my statements are scientifically accurate and true, they were taken out of context, and it makes it seem that either I’m anti-sunscreen, anti-establishment or that I think all sunscreens are toxic. This is absolutely not true…I’m not anti-sunscreen. I’m very pro-sun protection, whatever the form may be.” He goes on to say that he’s against blanket statements like “all sun is bad” as well as “sun fear mongering.”
In a statement to Beauty Independent on Primally Pure’s sunscreen campaign, founder Bethany McDaniel didn’t back away from the campaign. “We’re incredibly proud of our new SPF collection—it’s been nearly a decade in the making, and we’re excited to offer a sunscreen with clean, minimal ingredients that families can trust,” she says. “The campaign surrounding this launch was meant to spark conversation. We believe consumers deserve to know what’s in their sunscreen, especially when it comes to ingredients linked to hormone disruption and other health concerns. This campaign is about education and awareness, not alarm.”
Primally Pure, an indie skincare brand describing itself as “mindfully made” and “sourced from animals and plants,” is no stranger to controversial advertising and beauty messaging. In August last year, it ran a campaign celebrating beef tallow in its skincare with the image of a cow and the slogans, “Beef fat on your skin makes you hotter,” “Rub this on your skin,” and “Actually clean skincare.”
Although they aren’t novel (Beauty Independent spotted a brewing backlash against sunscreens and advocacy for sun exposure in 2018), Primally Pure’s views on ingredients and sun care align closely with United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s inclinations. Kennedy has criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for waging a “war on sunshine” and advocated for mineral-based sunscreen and against the chemical sunscreen filters oxybenzone and octinoxate. There are concerns that the filters potentially are endocrine disruptors that interfere with hormones, but Michelle Wong, the cosmetic chemist and science educator known as Lab Muffin, points out they haven’t been documented to disrupt human hormones at the levels in sunscreens.
Cosmetic scientist and product developer Julian Sass denounced Primally Pure’s campaign for being irresponsible and factually inaccurate. “None of the sunscreen filters on the market have any evidence to suggest that they are harmful or toxic to human health when used as directed,” he tells Beauty Independent in an email. “Every chemical on the planet has a dose and method of delivery (ingestion, topical, etc.) where it becomes toxic, and you simply cannot get to that point of toxicity by rubbing sunscreen on your body.”
Victoria Fu, a cosmetic chemist and co-founder of the skincare brand Chemist Confessions, concurs that Primally Pure is making false claims in its sunscreen marketing. “It’s important to remember that sunscreens are classified as a drug and fall under a much higher level of FDA scrutiny than typical sunscreens,” she says. “That means that, currently, there isn’t any conclusive evidence that sunscreens are unsafe. In fact, we all need to remember that empirical evidence shows that the sun is the true risk and hazard to consumer safety and is the main factor in cause of skin cancer.”
“The campaign surrounding this launch was meant to spark conversation.”
Primally Pure extols the benefits of sun exposure. On social media, it writes, “It’s proven that sun exposure benefits our body’s systems in the right doses…We lose our connection to ancestral rhythms when we block sunlight at all costs. Natural sun exposure is vital for hormone balance, skin health, and circadian rhythm.” The brand also writes, “For too long, we’ve been told to avoid the sun at all costs and to slather on toxic ingredients daily in the name of ‘protection.’ But it’s time for a more balanced, empowered approach. Our unpopular opinion: You don’t need SPF every day. But for those longer stretches in the sun, wearing a truly non-toxic, effective sunscreen matters.”
Primally Pure touts that its new mineral sunscreens, including $26 Sun Stick SPF 25 and $14 Sun Lip Balm SPF 15 as well as the $38 Sun Cream SPF 30, have less than 10 ingredients and avoid seed oils, ingredients Kennedy has targeted as unhealthy in food. Among the ingredients Primally Pure incorporates in its sunscreens are zinc oxide, caprylic/capric triglyceride, tallow, beeswax, coconut oil and mango butter.
Johnson takes issue with Primally Pure’s characterization of a “balanced approach.” In her Substack, she writes, “I can agree that some sun exposure is good for you and can be helpful with a variety of ailments. But what does that have to do with the fact that they literally made a mineral sunscreen that they are promoting in this same advertisement, which protects your skin against the sun?” She adds, “They capitalized on the virality of beef tallow, the fear around chemicals, and a tagline that will divide and invite discourse.”
In a TikTok video, Dieux co-founder and CEO Charlotte Palermino jokingly praises Primally Pure’s sunscreen campaign as the best grift she’s seen in beauty. She says, “What a bunch of smart little capitalists because what better way to get you to keep coming back for skincare than to create sun damage?”
@charlotteparler Listen say what you want but this is great problem solution marketing #sunscreen #skincare
After working in retail and writing for business publications, McDaniel started Primally Pure in 2015 by spending $250 of her own money to whip up skincare in her kitchen and put it up for sale on the website of her family’s regenerative and organic livestock farm in Southern California. From the beginning, it was squarely in the clean beauty category. More recently, it’s taken on the mantra of animal-based ingredients as they’ve become popular with MAHA adherents, and it’s drawn an enthusiastic audience of consumers.
According to competitor tracking platform Particl, in the last month, Primally Pure generated $10.3 million in e-commerce sales by moving 436,000 units. The platform estimates that it sells 176 products priced mostly from $12 to $78. Some bestsellers are Charcoal Deodorant, Plumping Serum, Antioxidant Balm and Blue Tansy Deodorant. Thomasina Hutchins, former research and development chemist at the brand Raining Rose, is Primally Pure’s product formulator.
