Rethink Your Sun Fun with Valerie McMurray, Founder of Luxury Suncare Brand Soleil Toujours
Show Snapshot:
Pull up your beach chair and settle in. We’re talking all things sunblock on today’s show. Because summer fun equals sun.
Meet Valerie McMurray, the founder, and CEO of Soleil Toujours, a line of mineral-based, eco-friendly sun and skincare products. While pregnant, Valerie looked at the sunblocks on the market, saw their long list of chemicals, and thought, “thanks but no thanks.”
We dive into the benefits of mineral sunblock, learn how Valerie pivoted from a career in finance to launch a luxury sun care company and hear about the two major setbacks that almost derailed her business. Plus, we talk eco-friendly packaging, ocean-safe ingredients, and what it means to be an earth-friendly product.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. How Valerie’s search for safe sunblock while pregnant led her to launch Soleil Toujours.
2. The steep learning curve in moving from investment banking to sunblock manufacturing.
3. The difference between mineral and chemical sunblock may surprise you.
4. What big-time beauty company served Val a cease-and-desist letter and how it almost derailed her business.
5. From bootstrapping to a “friends and family” investing round – how Val financed her business and expansion.
6. How the pandemic forced Soleil Toujours to pivot its distribution channels.
7. Why ocean and reef-safe ingredients are a cornerstone of the Soleil brand. Plus, the move to eco-friendly packaging and carbon offsets.
8. Val’s beach bag must-haves and the Soleil Toujours product she can’t live without.
Quotable:
Everybody is so obsessed with looking younger. If you’re not wearing sunscreen, it’s really for naught.
There are two types of sunscreen, mineral and chemical. Mineral is made with titanium dioxide and zinc dioxide; they sit on the surface of the skin and they reflect the rays. Sort of like a mirror. Whereas chemical sunscreens penetrate the skin, and when the rays hit the skin, they absorb and then disperse the rays. Many chemical sunscreens have oxybenzone or octinoxate, known hormone disrupters.
Transcript
Katie Fogarty (00:04):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty.
Summer fun equals sun; tennis, boating, barbecue, beach. Is your sunblock up to the challenge? Today’s guest is a woman who looked at the sunblocks on the market with their long list of chemicals and thought, thanks but no thanks. She set out to create something different, a line of mineral-based, eco-friendly, sun and skincare products. Meet Valeria McMurray, the founder and CEO of Soleil Toujours. She’s here to share how she launched and then grew her line of luxury sun care products after leaving a career in investment banking. Plus, we talk eco-friendly packaging, ocean-safe ingredients, and what it means to be an earth-friendly product. Welcome, Valerie.
Valerie Rodriguez McMurray (00:51):
Thank you Katie for having me on the show. I feel like we’re back in high school chatting in the senior lounge. [both laugh]
Katie (00:58):
Oh my gosh, we are not putting our listeners through what we talked about in the senior lounge.
Valerie (01:02):
No… That’s… No.
Katie (01:05):
Yeah, that’s off-limits.
Valerie (01:07):
Exactly.
Katie (01:07):
But I’m so excited that you’re with me today. I’ve been a fan of you since we met in eighth grade, I’m so thrilled that you’ve launched this amazing company and, as you know, I’m fair-skinned, freckly, I require vats and vats of sunblock. So, I use your products, I want to hear more about what sets them apart, what it means to be a mineral sunblock. But first I want you to share with our listeners how you started your company. Because you were in investment banking and then you jumped into the sun care market. Walk us through it.
Valerie (01:37):
Okay, it’s not pretty. [Katie laughs] But basically, my foray into sun care was really totally random. As you mentioned, I worked at an investment bank on the trading floor, I was actually on the foreign exchange trading floor. So, all this started when I was on vacation with Scott, my husband. We went to this amazing resort in the Caribbean and when I was there I wanted to buy a swim cover-up. So, I went to the hotel shop and they had hideous, hideous coverups so I decided I would make my own. So, back in New York, after work I signed up for this sewing class at FIT, just to know the basics because I didn’t know how to sew. I found a factory in the garment district, I started making these coverups, and then I cold-called these five star resorts and started selling to them. So places like Sandy Lane, Parrot Cay, and then I got into a couple of stories in Palm Beach and Nantucket. And then I hired a designer and we did a little line of swimwear for both women and men. And then from there, I thought I wanted to build this lifestyle brand so I thought sun care would be the next thing. And so when I was doing my research for sunscreen, I was pregnant with my third child, Theo, and I couldn’t find a sunscreen that I felt safe using as a pregnant person or felt safe using on my kids, or if they were more mineral, natural-based sunscreens they were nasty, they smelled terrible, they looked like you were covered in spackle.
Katie (03:00):
[laughs] Not a good look, that is not a good look.
Valerie (03:03):
No, no. For the kids, who cares, but for me, I was like, “That is not gonna happen.” So, fast forward like 10 years, Soleil was born. So basically that was my side hustle for a while, while I was working full time.
Katie (03:18):
It’s kind of amazing that you were able to juggle both things. I love that you shared that your company really evolved. You started off with a vision of creating beautiful cover-ups and you then evolved the business into sun care products. You obviously took your finance background and your MBA chops with you for the business end of things, but how did you learn to actually bring a product to market, you know, to create the sunblock, to test it, to package it?
Valerie (03:46):
So, basically all trial and error, and with that, I mean a ton, ton, a ton of errors. [Katie laughs] I basically pounded the virtual pavement. I searched for contract manufacturers who made sunscreen, and they’re really few and far between. Because sunscreens are an FDA-regulated over-the-counter drug, so there are a ton of regulations around the products, around testing, around production, so you have to have an FDA-regulated lab. But finding a good lab to work with is really virtually impossible. After all these years, it’s incredible. None of them are amazing to work with, and even fewer of them make great products and especially mineral sunscreens. So it was really hard to find a partner, I eventually did. The other thing is like brands never share who they work with, it’s sort of like their trade secret, who their labs are. And then labs also don’t share who their clients are so again, that makes it even harder. So basically, I searched for labs that had expertise in SPF and then I found companies that sold packaging components, I went to trade shows, did a ton of Google searches. I came to this business knowing nothing, absolutely nothing, and the whole thing has been one giant learning curve.
Katie (05:03):
And how long did that take? How long did it take from when you said, “Hey I want a mineral sunblock that smells amazing and feels luxurious,” to when you sold that first tube of sunscreen? What are we talking about, months? Years?
Valerie (05:16):
Oh God no, years for sure. I mean, I don’t know if you want me to start with the gory details.
Katie (05:24):
Sure, let’s do it.
Valerie (05:25):
Basically, it took I’d say about a year to find the lab, to find the packaging. At least a year. At that point, I wasn’t even attending trade shows. I was basically just looking online and doing a bunch of calling. This little venture has been fraught with setbacks. I’ll start from… Actually, to make a long story short, I’ll spare you the details, but I initially launched the cover-up business under the label Mersoleil. I registered the trademark for Mersoleil, for clothing, and then when I decided to make sunscreen my lawyer who I’d been working with, my trademark lawyer said, “Okay, you should have no problem using that Mark for sun care.” So, then I went ahead, I found this lab, we started producing, I did a really small one, five skews, so five products. We built a website, at the time, Shopify was not a thing. It wasn’t like you could just do it yourself, so I had to hire a firm that built my website. So, literally, I launched my website within I wanna say two weeks, I get a cease and desist from Estee Lauder saying that my mark, Mersoleil infringed on their mark, La Mer, because basically, Estee Lauder owns the word “Ma Mer” in all languages, so Mer, sea, you know the brand La Mer.
Katie (06:57):
That’s kind of a pretty big thing to own. They own "Mer" in every language?
Valerie (07:02):
They own it. Even Mersoleil was one word, it was Mersoleil, it’s Sea Sun, the fact that I had “mer” in there, meant that… And I wasn’t gonna fight Estee Lauder.
Katie (07:12):
No, of course, it’s like David and Goliath, this is not the right kind of thing to come out swinging. So, right out of the bat, two weeks out of the gate, your trademark’s gone. What happens next?
Valerie (07:23):
Yup. Tens of thousands of dollars, I basically had to scrap and then start over. Then I spent the next year trying to find a new lab because the products then were not great. So, it was almost like a blessing in disguise. All of these horrible setbacks were if you look back, really kind of blessings in disguise.
So anyway, about a year later, I launched, I found a new lab and then I found the new name, and then I trademarked, the smart thing trademarked the name before actually launching the product. I launched under the label Soleil Organique. So things were going well, I started selling. And I think I was about two years into the business and then I got sued by the state of California for the name Organique, I mean, why I’m still in this business today is beyond me.
Katie (08:15):
So, this is setback number two. California comes swinging and says…why do they object to Organique, why?
Valerie (08:22):
They’re saying Organique was misleading, my products were not 70% organic, which is true. But I’m like, organique is a fake word, it’s meant to be sort of French, but that’s not what organic in French means and Biologique is French. Anyhow, so again, I lost that battle. Not really lost it, I just decided to, again, change the name. I could have sold anywhere in the world, except for the state of California, but California being kind of large and sunny.
Katie (08:53):
Sure. California being the sunshine capital of the world. Exactly, this is a big market. People go to the beach in California, you want to be able to sell your products there. So, how did you settle on Soleil Toujours then?
Valerie (09:02):
So again, doing a lot of searching. Using our lawyers, I think I might have gone back and forth on so many different names. I love the word “soleil," and then “toujours” came because it just means sun always. And that made sense to me because basically, our whole concept for this brand is that the sun is out every day. 365 days of the year, it is a stressor on your skin, whether it’s sunny, whether it’s rainy, cloudy, it’s always there and it’s always essentially dangerous. So, Soleil Toujours was the one that came up and the one that made sense. Even though it’s really long and my email is long, most people totally butcher the name, it made sense. And it was trademark-able. I don’t know if that’s the right term, but I was able to register.
Katie (10:05):
Well, it’s such a beautiful name. This is pretty amazing. So, you first ran into the stumbling block of Estee Lauder coming, then California came after you, and then you were able to get a name that worked. So this sounds like a lot of expensive problems. You’re hiring lawyers, you’re recreating packages. How did your early financing work? Was it self-funded? [Valerie laughs] Why are you laughing?
Valerie (10:30):
Because like, basically we were on the verge of divorce. At this point, I had quit my job. I was working, we had three little kids, I was working all night, spending all my money, then started spending all his money, and getting nowhere.
Katie (10:47):
[laughs] So was this bootstrapped or did you have outside investors?
Valerie (10:51):
A hundred percent, it was just us. Let me tell you how many conversations Scott has said, “Are you ever going to make money?”
Katie (11:02):
Oh my gosh, we’re gonna take a quick break, but when we come back I want to hear if this product ever did make money. We’ll be back in just a minute.
[Ad break]
Katie (12:13):
Okay so Val, we’re back. We’ve gone through the speed bumps. Scott, your husband, has said to you, “Is this product gonna make money?” You have multiple products now, I know that you’re in resorts all over the world, you get a lot of amazing press. I open Vogue, I open Harper’s Bazaar, I open any magazine you can name and you’re in it. So tell us when the product did start to take hold and you started to see it out in the wild, in resorts and in stores.
Valerie (12:42):
Well, I have to say, pretty early on, we started getting press. So I hired PR I think like in the very beginning, in terms of marketing, I think the only marketing we had was PR. And then even for a period, we didn’t have PR. It was really organic, the way people found out about it. My strategy initially was to sell to these high-end resorts. We only sell to like, five star properties, we sell to Net-a-Porter, these amazing sort of niche retailers. And that was really kind of by word of mouth. It was sort of building like a brand that was sort of like, not really a secret, but we didn’t spend any money on marketing, we did no advertising, we did no digital advertising at the time. So, people, editors came to us, after we initially had PR, but people kept coming to us because they kept seeing us at like, Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton's and you know, Amans and stuff like that. So, I guess my initial strategy was really just to sort of create a brand organically. And then only last year, well actually, toward the end of 2019 did we start investing in digital advertising.
Katie (14:04):
Gotcha. Because you really were like a cult favorite. You were always on the editors list, you would see this in the magazines where the editors would share what they were putting into their sun bag and beach bag, and your sunscreen was in it because it smells amazing and the packaging is gorgeous. And so it really was a cult favorite. So did digital advertising help broaden your audience and did it help broaden sales?
Valerie (14:32):
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say in the beginning, I’d say 2019, we were 96, I just did the math, 96% of our sales were to wholesalers. So resorts, spas, retailers, Brick and Mortars, Bluemercuries, et cetera. And then, towards the end of 2019—luckily before the world blew up—we decided I really needed to increase my direct consumer sales, my online sales. The way to do that was through digital marketing, so advertising on Instagram, on Facebook, on Google, email marketing. Now we’re doing like, text messaging. Luckily, before the pandemic hit, we started to increase direct consumer sales, and thankfully because all of our resorts, 134 Bluemercury stores that we were in all shut down. So, my goal still is today, to increase our direct consumer sales, over 50% at this point. We’re probably now around 35, 36%.
Katie (15:44):
That’s fantastic. I’m so happy to hear that your direct-to-consumer base is growing because it must have been terrible during COVID as your traditional retailers started closing down. How did you navigate COVID? Did you have to wind up laying off any employees? Did you cease production, or scale it back?
Valerie (16:04):
Luckily, in 2019 we hired a marketing firm to help us rebrand. Because I just wanted a refresh of the product, I thought I needed just a little bit more solid branding, so we hired a firm and we were supposed to launch in 2019. But at the same time, I was also thinking I needed to start raising funds because Scott was ready to kick me out of the house. [Katie laughs] and so…
Katie (16:35):
Everybody listening should know that Valerie’s got a very lovely husband Scott. [laughs]
Valerie (16:41):
He’s put up with a lot, that’s for sure, and he’s still here and still hanging strong.
Katie (16:46):
He’s in it for the sunblock, right?
Valerie (16:51):
Yeah, he’s very pale, he’s Irish pale.
Katie (16:54):
We have the same skin.
Valerie (16:56):
You have the same skin.
Katie (16:58):
He’s investing in this because he wants, you know, he’s worried about his—
Valerie (17:03):
So luckily, I forgot to mention, the two of us were kind of investing, we were putting our money into it. But then it might have been 4 years ago, was approached by a private equity guy. And one of my close friends is a partner at Goldman and I said to him, “Help, what do I say? This guy wants to talk.” He’s like, “Oh my God, I know him, let’s chat.” So we chatted, and after I was telling him about my business he’s like, “I’d like to invest.” And I was like, “Really? That wasn’t the point of this conversation.” So anyhow, we issued these convertible notes, then Scott was like, “I want convertible notes, I don’t want to just be like, the husband investor.” So, the two of them were really my source of funding for like, from four years ago. And then 2019, I decided I really needed to raise, real money. Not that they weren’t giving me real money, but I needed a million and a half dollars. So, I did a friends-and-family round and basically through friends that are all in private equity. And so I felt safe. I hate asking for money from friends but these guys, they’re investors professionally. I was looking for, minimums were like $50,000, I was looking for a lot of money from people and everyone was on board. Luckily, I don’t even know how this happened, but I raised it right before we closed, probably January 2020, luckily right before COVID, because we would have been in serious, serious trouble had we not raised that money.
Katie (18:41):
Right, absolutely. So it gave you that cushion that you needed to move your bricks and mortar sales into more D-to-C. That’s fortunate. So, do you see yourself wanting to get back on store shelves, or do you see yourself that direct to consumer is really the future for your company?
Valerie (19:03):
Well, it’s a combination. They’re back, everyone’s back. The hard thing was, I think this was one of the hardest things about our business is really managing our inventory. So, because we were rebranding and redoing our packaging, part of the whole reason for the rebrand was just to refresh the look, number one, and to have a more cohesive sort of brand story. But number two was I was switching 95% of our petroleum-based plastic packaging to bioplastic. That’s basically plastic made from, sugar cane plastic or ocean waste plastic, or PCR, which is post-consumer recycled plastic. So, you know, to do all of that was super capital intensive.
Katie (19:51):
And why did you decide to do that? To make the switch from plastic to eco-friendly packaging?
Valerie (19:55):
The incentive has always been for me, being good to our bodies and then being good to our environment, has always been the two tenants of our business. For the last three years, for example, we have been operating at a net carbon zero footprint. So we offset, we calculate all of our carbon emissions from all of our operations, and then we offset them by investing in these carbon projects through cooleffect.org. So you know, the next step was really trying to improve my packaging, and going to bioplastic is really the next step. And you know, very costly, very expensive. But I am a prestige brand, so for me, it’s really about delivering the best, even though, you know, unfortunately for my husband, it’s not…
Katie (20:47):
[laughs] And the best ain’t cheap, sorry Scott. But I love that you switched to eco-friendly packaging. Because, we all feel terrible about dumping plastic stuff into the trash, not everything is recyclable. So the fact that you are using post-consumer plastic or sugar cane packaging is amazing. I know that historically, your company is really focused on reef-safe and ocean-safe ingredients. I would love it if you could just take a minute to let our listeners know, what is mineral sunblock number one. And we’ll dive into your ingredients in a minute, but what is mineral sunblock? For those of us that grew up on you know, Coppertone. How is this different?
Valerie (21:26):
Right. So basically there are two types of sunscreen, there’s mineral and there’s chemical. And basically, mineral is made with titanium dioxide and zinc dioxide. So those are basically minerals from the earth and the way they work is when you put them on the skin, they sit on the surface of the skin, they don’t penetrate the skin and they reflect the rays. Sort of like a mirror. Whereas chemical sunscreens, the way they work is they penetrate the skin and when the rays hit the skin they sort of absorb and then disperse the rays. So that’s how they protect. So, mineral really is to me, the most stable, number one, you have a lot of chemical sunscreens that really, which is so counter-intuitive, but they break down in the sun depending on their combination. The other thing is if you’ve got really scary chemical sunscreens like oxybenzone or octinoxate, those are known hormone disrupters, they enter the skin, they can stay in the blood for years and years and years, they can have effects on hormones and all sorts of things. But so minerals really are the safest, the most effective, the most stable. They sit on top of the skin and they, you know, reflect rays. So that’s how they work.
Katie (22:36):
It sounds like a total no-brainer, sign me up for all the minerals.
Valerie (22:39):
Well, however, comes to the caveat. Typically mineral sunscreens are super white and chalky, and thick and nasty and spackle-like. So that’s where the challenge has been. And over the years the technology has improved significantly, but up until recently, it was really difficult to create a beautiful mineral formula.
Katie (23:02):
And so how were you able to do it? You obviously found yourself a good chemist because your stuff is very light.
Valerie (23:07):
Yeah, it is light. And there’s also this concept of nanoparticles, where what they do is they micronize these titanium dioxides and zinc particles to be tiny, tiny. Where they can enter the skin. So, for what we do, we never use nanoparticles, which can be potentially dangerous. It’s just really finding the right chemist who is an expert at this. Like I said before, the number of labs in this country that do mineral sunscreen well, I wanna say there are like, maybe five. There’s not a lot I think. People can make regular makeup for nothing, without all the regulations, without all the testing, it’s kind of a no-brainer. I don’t know why I chose this field, but it’s been an interesting one.
Katie (23:56):
Because you love the sun. So tell us about, I know you say that you market this as being reef-safe, ocean-safe. What does that mean?
Valerie (24:04):
So there’s a couple of chemicals, who have done these studies and have shown that oxybenzone and octinoxate create these viruses in corals and lead to their bleaching which leads to their eventual death. So 10% apparently, of the world’s coral reefs are killed by sunscreen. So if you think about it, you’re in Hawaii, you’re snorkeling, you’re wearing your chemical sunscreen, you’re there, you know, to enjoy the corals and to see the fish but if you’re using sunscreen with those chemicals, and the most popular is oxybenzone. It used to be and now it’s becoming less. You see the state of Hawaii whose banned oxybenzone and octinoxate from their islands. The Keys are starting to ban, the Caribbean Islands are starting to ban these chemicals, it used to be the most popular chemical sunscreen found in the majority of sunscreens. So we have never included those chemicals in our products, we have always been reef safe from the beginning. And we actually just partnered with the Goldeneye Foundation out of Jamaica, that have this whole coral reforestation program, where their goal is to plant 100,000 corals in the next 10 years. So we’re donating a portion of our proceeds to their reforestation efforts.
Katie (25:27):
I love that. I love Jamaica and I love that you’re doing that, that sounds so amazing. So, tell our listeners a little bit about your products. You said you started with five SKUs, five products, what are you up to now?
Valerie (25:37):
Well so, basically everything we do revolves around the sun. I think that’s where I found where we could differentiate. If you think about it, there’s like a million makeup skincare brands on the market but I just found that there was this opportunity where there weren’t beautiful formulations in sun care, they didn’t have great ingredients, and the other thing is they’re just purely sunscreen. So for me, my goal is really to not just create sunscreens but really to produce a new category of multitasking products. So, these products bridge the gap between luxury skin care and sun care. So, in all of our products we couple amazing, really safe sunscreen actives with potent antioxidants, anti-aging ingredients, and actives. Basically at the end of the day, my goal is to make products that people want to use every day, not just when they’re at the beach and not just in the summer. So you know, if you think about it also, 80% or more of premature aging is caused by the sun. So if you’re not wearing sunscreen every day, it’s sort of like, why? Botox and all of that stuff, everybody is so obsessed with looking younger. If you’re not wearing sunscreen, it’s really for naught.
Katie (26:52):
Right, that’s like ground zero, that’s table stakes. You gotta put that sunscreen on every single day. So how many products do you have now? Sounds like you’ve got a hybrid of sun care skincare, what does that look like?
Valerie (27:07):
Yeah, it’s really a combination of sun and skin. So basically we have a face product. Most of our skews are SPF, but for example, something that is more of a daily use product, we have an eye cream with an SPF. It’s called our eye glow, it’s got this mica so it’s got sort of like illuminating, it has a glow to it. So basically illuminates the eye area…
Katie (27:34):
We love glowing.
Valerie (27:36):
It’s got SPF 15, and it also has a ton of anti-aging ingredients, a bunch of different peptides and it’s just power-packed. So, I would say you know, our products are really a combination of sun and skin. So, if I have a face product, for example, face SPF 50, again loaded with different peptides and great anti-aging. So it’s a moisturizer, it’s an SPF, it’s an anti-ager. And then my goal is, our next release will be tinted moisturizers which will double as makeup or foundation, plus the SPF, plus the anti-aging. And then, we have, I would say for the most part at this point, most of the products are kind of traditional SPFs except for the eye, but then we have a lip product with and SPF 15.
Katie (28:29):
I just ordered that. I got the one that was sort of glittery and pink and it looked amazing. It’s sunblock for your lips, right?
Valerie (28:38):
Pardon me?
Katie (28:39).:
It’s sunblock for your lips, isn’t it?
Valerie (28:41):
Absolutely, yup. So it’s sunblock with the lips which is super important because the lips are really delicate, and the same thing with the eye, you know. So those are areas that we create products that are really unique. You don’t see many mineral-based lip products. The next thing might be, we’re looking at lipsticks with SPF, tinted sort of foundations, and easy creams that are great but also have incredible antioxidant ingredients as well.
Katie (29:10):
Lovely, I also noticed you have after sun care products too. So after you’ve been in the sun you have some sprays and some treatments and you have things to manage that are sort of aloe-based, am I right?
Valerie (29:22):
Yup. It’s funny because the resorts that we sell at, one of our best sellers are aloe. Because typically guests who go to resorts think they want to go and get tanned and then they burn because they don’t wear sunscreen properly. So we sell a ton of aloe, and that’s basically you know, to help relieve sunburn and stressed skin. We also do a cocofleur, it’s an organic coconut and rosewater hydrating mist. So if you think about it, you know the Evian sprays that are just pure water.
Katie (29:53):
Sure, yeah.
Valerie (29:54):
So this is really just sort of a souped-up version of that. Where it’s not just plain water, it’s coconut water, rosewater, plus other amazing anti-aging ingredients.
Katie (30:08):
That sounds absolutely divine. My daughter Grace, by the way, has this rosewater spray that she sprays on herself, and every time she does it cracks me up, I’m like, “You’re 20. Your skin is already soft and dewy, you do not need that rosewater spray, hand that over to me.” [both laugh]
Valerie (30:25):
But that is our motto, protect the skin you were born with, so she is very smart.
Katie (30:30):
She is smart. By the way, oh my gosh, she’s got an internship this summer where she’s out on a boat doing dive work and researching for a university-based out in Southampton and she texted me a picture the other day, she was wearing a shoulder to wrist rash guard, and a big, big floppy you know, wide-brimmed hat and she said, “Mom, you’d be so proud.” And I said, “I am, I love the fact that you’re taking care of your skin.” Because it’s so important to get on that early and train yourself and you know, I learned the hard way. I’ve got a gazillion freckles. [laughs]
Valerie (31:05):
And then wrinkles. You think about it, you invest in your skin now, you can buy a car, you can buy a condo with the money that you save by wearing sunscreen and not paying for botox. [laughs]
Katie (31:17):
That’s so true, so true. So do you feel that your own sun care and skin philosophy has changed as you’ve gotten older or were you always good about taking care of your skin?
Valerie (31:27):
No, never. Do you remember when we were in high school, we’d sit outside the building at Sacred Heart with those reflectors to try get tan and, by the way, I was already tanned so why did I need that? I didn’t. But it was the thing to do. We all wanted, no one wore sun screen, my parents never made me use sunscreen, it just wasn’t a thing.
Katie (31:49):
Yeah, all of us children of the ’70s and ‘80s, every single person listening to this right now, remembers those Coppertone ads, remembers those crazy silver reflectors. I honestly like peeled a lot of fried skin off my nose when I was at the beach when I was younger. But by the way, I kind of worked it out by the time I was 25, I like literally am always in the muumuu and the beach with the big crazy hat and wrapped up and stuff because eventually, we catch on.
Valerie (32:19):
Yes, to answer your question, yeah absolutely. My skincare routines have changed.
Katie (32:26):
And do you feel that you’re good about, sharing that with your daughter?
Valerie (32:29):
I try. She is a 15-year-old now and does everything to spite me. So basically, I am at a lacrosse tournament with her now and she came home fried. [Katie laughs] Because she refuses to wear sunscreen, she only wants the chemical, we do have the chemical but she doesn’t reapply, and so she’s fried. I try. And I think she does it because I have a sunscreen company.
Katie (32:56):
Teen girls are hard. She’ll get there someday but your products are amazing because they smell divine and like I said the packaging is gorgeous. Is there a product that you always have in your beach bag>
Valerie (33:11):
I always have my lip masks. Not only because I lose them all the time, but I love them, they’re super hydrating, they come in 6 shades, they have the SPF 15 and I never have a bag without them.
Katie (33:28):
Gotcha. And what else, besides your own products, what else is in your beach bag, what else do we need to have to protect ourselves from the sun?
Valerie (33:36):
I always have a hat. This is probably a result of me not wearing sunscreen in the past but I have terrible melanoma, but that’s also caused by hormones, so it’s basically hyperpigmentation caused by hormones, and just being old I guess. And you know, so I always have a hat. My other favorite product, I don’t wear a lot of stuff on my face but Aquaphor is a godsend, for everything, me and my entire family, like Aquaphor, I’m never without that.
Katie (34:07):
I love Aquaphor, I can echo that. I use it on my lips, I use it on my cuticles, I used to use it on my babies' bottoms a million years ago. So lip products, a big hat, Aquaphor, I’m with you on that. That sounds like a very well-stocked beach bag. Val, how can our listeners keep following you, find your products, and learn more about Soleil Toujours.
Valerie (34:30):
I guess through our website, the website is www.soleiltoujours.com, which is really long, complicated spelling. Otherwise, on Instagram, I think it's @soleil_toujours and then signing up for our newsletter on our website.
Katie (34:51):
Fantastic. I’m putting Soleil Toujours and your Instagram into our show notes so everybody can find them. Val, thank you so much for being with me today. Who would have thought so many years ago, sitting in the senior lounge, that we’d be hanging out on a podcast talking about your sun care company? I’m so proud of you, thank you for joining me today.
Valerie (35:09):
Thank you, Katie, so fun, so fun. And I’m so proud of you, the podcast is amazing.
Katie (35:14):
Thank you. This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50 who are aging without apology. If you enjoyed this week’s show, please stop what you are doing and take a minute to click-clack over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the pod to rate and review the show. Reviews really matter, I would love yours.
Join me next week when I’m joined by veteran investor, Tracy Chadwell who is working to close the gender investing gap and who is just named to the first-ever Forbes Women, 50 Over 50 list. Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then; age boldly, beauties.