From Baby Oil to Glitter Sunscreen

Why We Don’t Just Protect Our Skin Anymore

Walk down almost any beach this summer, and you’ll notice something that would have been difficult to imagine just a few decades ago. Sunscreen has become a conversation.

One family carefully applies mineral sunscreen because they don’t trust “chemical” formulations. Nearby, someone reaches for a lightweight Korean sunscreen after watching countless skincare influencers praise its finish and ingredients. A teenager coats her shoulders in glitter sunscreen designed to sparkle in the sun. Not far away, another beachgoer proudly explains why they don’t wear sunscreen at all, convinced that natural sunlight has become one of the most misunderstood forces in modern health.

Everyone is responding to the same environment. The sun hasn’t changed. The product exists for the same reason it always has: to reduce the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation. Yet what was once a straightforward health product has become something much larger. Today, sunscreen has become another way to communicate who we are, what we believe, and which communities we identify with.

That transformation tells us far more about modern marketing than it does about skincare.

It also illustrates one of the central ideas behind FADS: products rarely remain functional for long. Once a product category matures and competitors begin offering similar performance, marketers stop competing primarily on utility. They start competing on identity.

When a Tan Was the Product

Ironically, sunscreen wasn’t always the centerpiece of the conversation. For much of the twentieth century, the real product consumers wanted wasn’t protection at all. It was the tan.

This represented a remarkable reversal in cultural values. For centuries, pale skin served as a signal of wealth because it suggested a person didn’t spend their days performing manual labor outdoors. Farmers tanned. Aristocrats remained pale.

As industrialization changed work and leisure, those signals reversed. Office workers spent their days inside while vacations became symbols of prosperity. A bronzed complexion no longer suggested labor; it suggested enough disposable income and free time to spend afternoons beside a pool, on a sailboat, or at a seaside resort. Looking sun-kissed became evidence that you had escaped work altogether.

Baby oil became a summer staple. Some consumers mixed it with iodine in pursuit of darker, faster tans. Advertisements featured bronzed bodies stretched across beaches and pool decks, reinforcing the message that sunlight wasn’t something to avoid. It was something to embrace, provided you acquired the “right” amount of it.

Even early sunscreens were often marketed less as protection than as tools that allowed consumers to tan more effectively without burning too quickly. The product wasn’t preventing sun exposure; it was helping people manage it.

The objective wasn’t healthy skin; it was visible leisure.

Science Changed the Conversation

By the late twentieth century, that story began to unravel.

Research connecting ultraviolet radiation to premature aging, sun damage, and skin cancer steadily accumulated. Public health organizations, dermatologists, and skincare companies gradually reframed the conversation. The sun hadn’t become dangerous overnight, but our understanding of the dangers of prolonged exposure had changed dramatically.

Consumers learned a new vocabulary. SPF ratings became familiar. Broad-spectrum protection, UVA versus UVB rays, water resistance, daily facial sunscreen, and dermatologist recommendations entered mainstream advertising. Parents became diligent about protecting children from burns. Applying sunscreen slowly evolved from an occasional vacation ritual into a daily health habit.

For a time, sunscreen seemed wonderfully ordinary.

Consumers compared SPF levels, checked expiration dates, and purchased products that fit their budgets. The category seemed driven primarily by performance. Which product protected better? Which lasted longer? Which irritated sensitive skin less?

That should have been the end of the story, but it was the beginning of another one.

The Commodity Problem

Modern marketing has a difficult relationship with products that become too similar.

Once consumers generally accept that a product works, differentiation becomes increasingly difficult. Most major sunscreen manufacturers can produce products that satisfy regulatory standards and provide effective protection. Improvements still happen, but the functional differences between brands narrow relative to the marketing differences.

This creates a familiar problem.

If nearly every major sunscreen protects consumers from ultraviolet radiation, why should someone choose one bottle over another?

Competing on SPF alone becomes increasingly ineffective. A higher number eventually means very little if consumers already believe competing products are “good enough.” Price competition compresses margins. Innovation becomes incremental rather than revolutionary.

When functional advantages become harder to communicate, companies begin searching elsewhere for distinction.

That “somewhere else” is usually identity.

Instead of asking consumers which sunscreen protects them best, marketers invite them to ask a different question entirely.

Which sunscreen says something about me?

Protection Becomes Performance

Today’s sunscreen market reflects that shift.

Some brands position themselves around scientific authority, dermatologist endorsements, and clinical testing. Their customers often value expertise, measurable evidence, and medical credibility.

Others build their identity around mineral ingredients, reef-safe formulations, sustainability, or “clean beauty.” Purchasing these products communicates concern for environmental stewardship or skepticism toward synthetic ingredients.

The rise of Korean skincare has introduced another layer, in which consumers increasingly associate certain formulations with innovation, elegance, and sophisticated beauty routines. The product becomes part of a broader aesthetic rather than simply a health decision.

Meanwhile, social media has made sunscreen visible in ways previous generations never experienced. Morning skincare routines are filmed, discussed, reviewed, and monetized. Applying sunscreen has become content.

Perhaps no example illustrates this transformation better than products like Unicorn Snot Glitter Sunscreen.

Its purpose extends beyond protecting skin from ultraviolet radiation. It sparkles. It photographs well. It announces itself. The sunscreen becomes an accessory, deliberately designed to be noticed rather than disappear.

Protection has become performance.

The product no longer simply prevents something undesirable. It creates something desirable: visibility.

The Other Side of the Pendulum

Interestingly, the same forces that transformed sunscreen into a lifestyle product also helped create its opposite.

A growing anti-sunscreen movement argues that modern society has become overly fearful of sunlight. Wellness influencers debate vitamin D deficiencies, promote “natural” sun exposure, question chemical ingredients, and encourage followers to return to what they describe as ancestral health practices. Zinc-based products often become symbols of purity and natural living rather than simply alternative formulations.

Whether these claims are supported by scientific evidence (they aren’t) is almost secondary to the marketing lesson they reveal.

Consumers are no longer merely selecting products.

They are selecting narratives.

One bottle represents trust in dermatological research. Another represents environmental consciousness. Another communicates beauty and aesthetics. Refusing sunscreen altogether may signal skepticism toward institutions or commitment to alternative wellness philosophies.

The purchase itself becomes shorthand for an entire worldview.

The FADS Pattern

From the perspective of FADS, sunscreen’s evolution is entirely predictable.

Once products fulfill their original purpose, marketers naturally start attaching additional meaning to them because meaning is harder for competitors to copy than features.

Marketing has always understood that consumers rarely purchase products solely because of what those products do.

We purchase stories about ourselves. We purchase symbols that reinforce our identity. We purchase signals that help others understand the tribes to which we belong.

The functional benefit earns consideration.

Identity earns loyalty.

That is why sunscreen no longer occupies a simple place on the pharmacy shelf. It’s become another arena where companies compete for our beliefs as much as our business.

Perhaps that’s the inevitable destination of every successful product category. Once the practical problem has largely been solved, the commercial opportunity shifts elsewhere. Companies stop asking how to improve the product and begin asking how to make the product mean something.

Even a bottle designed to prevent sunburn eventually becomes a statement about health, beauty, environmental responsibility, personal freedom, scientific trust, or self-expression.

The sun hasn’t changed. We’ve simply found new ways to market ourselves beneath it.