Shontay Lundy has revealed she has only one regret in her journey as a founder.
Lundy’s brainchild, Black Girl Sunscreen, launched with a personal investment of $33,000, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. The company offers products designed to provide hydration without leaving a white residue—a common issue encountered by many in the Black community when applying sunscreen.
It was this gap in the market that incentivized Lundy.
“I’m a woman of the sun, the time I was living in Miami, I currently live in Los Angeles. I love being on the beach. It was ‘Okay, what do you think about sunscreen?’ My friends would offer me sunscreen and I would tell them, ‘Do you see my complexion? That sh-t don’t work on this complexion,’” she explained during a conversation on with AFROTECH™ Brand Manager Will Lucas on the Black Tech Green Money podcast. “So I jumped on the computer and just started to type in keywords, sunscreen for ethnic skin. Sunscreen for Black girls. Sunscreen for brown girls. Nothing came up. And I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this.’ And it was twofold, threefold, actually. It was jumping on the wave of Black girl magic, A. B, finding a space that wasn’t talking to Black women and Black women weren’t there. And then what’s about to make me some money.”
After collaborating with a chemist, manufacturer, and web developer, she gained confidence in the product’s viability and launched Black Girl Sunscreen in 2016.
Since, Lundy has felt the support of the community and has also witnessed significant wins for the company since its inception. This includes a $1 million raise in 2020, bringing the company’s valuation to $5 million at the time, and placement in major retail stores such as Target, Walgreens, and Ulta Beauty.
“As a Black-owned business, we need validation. And when you get on the shelves of these major retailers, it now says to customers that you’re not making product in your home,” she explained.
Black Girl Sunscreen’s product lineup has scaled over the years and this includes a Make it Pop™ SPF 50 Sungloss™ made with shea butter, rose seed oil, and aloe leaf juice. It has also branched off to include a division for men and children.
Her only regret this far she says was the decision to allow the retailer to determine the price of her product.
“One mistake that I admit making, and I will never do this again, the only regret ever that I have in black girl sunscreen ever is allowing the retailer to dictate my price,” she explained. “Now that we have this price, we’ve never changed it. And I was green, I was green, I didn’t know. And it was just so much excitement around going into the retailer that was just like, ‘Okay, you don’t want to mess anything up.’ So you go along with all the discounts and all these different programs that you have to spend money towards. Black Girl Sunscreen is not in any DEI program. We went into retail pre-pandemic. So, we go toe to toe with all the rest of the players in the sun care aisle. We don’t have like, ‘Hey, because they’re Black owned business, we’re going to give them X.”
To check out the full interview, click here.
