Supergoop's Unseen Sunscreen is a clear gel that sells as a makeup primer. Beauty of Joseon's Relief Sun is a lightweight fluid in a squeezy tube that went viral for feeling like nothing on skin. Salt & Stone makes a tinted face stick positioned alongside surf culture and clean beauty. Three different products, three different businesses — and the thing that separates them is not the SPF number or the UV filter. It is the format. O sunscreen formats a brand chooses is, in practice, the single decision that shapes who the product is for, how it feels, quanto custa, and how hard it is to make. Most founders treat it as a packaging detail. The brands winning right now treated it as the strategy.
This guide compares the main formats — lotion, creme, gel, Spray, grudar, and the cushion that is quietly breaking out — from a brand-building perspective. Para cada um, the questions that matter are where it sits in the market, who is winning with it and how, and what it commits you to. If you are working with a fabricante de protetor solar de marca própria, the format you pick determines almost everything downstream.
One framing note: this is written for brands selling in markets that regulate sunscreen as a cosmetic — the EU, o Reino Unido, much of Asia, Ámérica do Sul, o Golfo, and parts of Africa. All of these formats are common across them, though a few format-specific rules (aerosols especially) vary by market.
EU. Lotion and Cream Still Own the Shelf — and That Is the Problem
Lotion and cream account for roughly 54% of the sun care market in 2026, according to Fortune Business Insights. They remain the default for good reason: even coverage, compatibility with every skin type, and the ability to carry skincare actives — niacinamide, ácido hialurônico, antioxidants — more comfortably than any other format. Nearly every "SPF as the last step of your routine" positioning ends up here, and that is precisely the problem for a new brand: the shelf is already full.
The growth inside this center is not in plain sunscreen. It is in hybrids that blur the line between sun care and base makeup. In the UK, skin-tint sales jumped 34% in the year to May 2026, according to Circana, up from 14% the year before. Solésence chief executive Kevin Cureton frames it bluntly: the skin tint is becoming the beauty consumer's daily moisturiser, a single product that delivers coverage, cuidados com a pele, e FPS. Anastasia Beverly Hills launched its Hydra Prime at SPF 50, selling it as a primer rather than a sunscreen. The lesson is that the winning lotion in 2026 is not being sold as a lotion at all — it is a moisturiser, a primer, or a skin tint that happens to protect.
For a brand entering this space, the implication is direct: an undifferentiated SPF lotion, however well made, is a hard sell. If lotion is the format, it needs a reason to exist beyond the SPF — a skincare story, a tint, a texture play — because it is competing against thousands of other tubes that already work fine.
II. Sticks — the Hardest to Make, and the Fastest Growing on the Face
If lotion owns the shelf, sticks own the momentum on the face. One market analysis values the face sunscreen stick segment at roughly $752 milhão em 2024, heading toward $1.1 bilhões por 2034, and the logic is simple: a stick goes in a bag, reapplies over makeup without a mirror, and travels. That convenience is not a nice-to-have. It is the reason people actually reapply during the day, which is where most sunscreen fails in real life.
The field is already crowded enough to have tiers. CeraVe has a stick with hyaluronic acid and ceramides, playing the barrier-repair angle. Cetaphil runs a mineral stick at SPF 50 aimed at sensitive skin. Blue Lizard dominates kids. Salt & Stone sits in clean, prêmio, outdoor-lifestyle territory. And Nivea, not a brand typically associated with K-beauty, launched a Silky UV Stick that it manufactures in Korea and promotes specifically on its invisible finish and Korean technology — a signal of how much the format's center of gravity has shifted toward Asia.
Spate's 2026 sun care report puts the shift plainly: face-specific sun care is moving from sprays toward sticks, soros, and setting mists. On Amazon in the US, "korean sunscreen stick" draws roughly 3,000 searches a week, with the top three products capturing nearly 60% of clicks — concentrated demand, but not yet locked up.
Here is the structural opening that makes sticks especially interesting for a newer brand. Across multiple industry reports, a consistent line appears: private-label participation in sticks remains limited, because the format is genuinely harder to formulate. A solid sunscreen has to stay firm through heat in a warehouse or a shipping container, still glide on without dragging, and lay down an even enough film to deliver its rated SPF. Mineral formulations in sticks — the segment growing fastest, with one report putting mineral-stick growth at 62% — are harder still. That difficulty is the moat. A brand that can produce a stick which goes on smoothly and survives summer transit is competing in a space half the private-label market avoids. On the packaging side, the barrier is low: wholesale stick containers run roughly $0.13 para $0.58 a unit at minimums around 1,000 para 10,000 pedaços. The cost is not in the tube. It is in making the stick inside it actually work.
III. Cushions — the Format Most Guides Miss
The genuinely new entry that most format roundups overlook is the sunscreen cushion — liquid SPF held in a sponge-soaked compact, borrowed straight from K-beauty makeup, pressed onto the skin for mess-free reapplication even over a full face. Spate identifies cushions as the latest K-beauty format making waves in the US market, with TirTir and Laneige leading. The same K-beauty wave is what carried Beauty of Joseon into the top ten sun care brands in Europe, according to Circana.
Para uma marca, the cushion's appeal is the same as the stick's but one step further along the difficulty curve: it is differentiated, it is early, and it is hard to manufacture well, which means the competitive field is thin. It is not a first product for a brand just getting started — but for one ready to stand out in a crowded market, it is a sharp move, and one most competitors are not yet set up to make.
4. Spray — Honest About What It Does and Does Not Do
Spray is the body-and-convenience format, and it is growing on exactly that: Fortune Business Insights notes sprays gaining share on the strength of usage convenience, with colored roll-on products in particular pulling in younger buyers. The reapplication habit a spray enables is genuinely valuable — it is what people reach for after a swim or a run, the format that turns a single-use product into a routine.
The honest catch is a real-world protection gap. Every format is tested for SPF at the same dose — two milligrams per square centimetre, sob ISO 24444 — but because a spray is misted on, people routinely apply less than that, and wind takes a share of what they do. The protection a customer actually gets from a spray can trail the number on the can, not because of the formula, but because of how the format is used. (The testing side of this is covered in detail in a companion guide on how SPF testing works.) None of this disqualifies spray — it means a brand that sells a spray should make application guidance part of the product, and position it for the body and for reapplication rather than as a primary face sunscreen. Spray also carries operational weight: aerosol filling is a separate line with its own cost and regulatory steps in some markets.
V. Gel and the Lightweight Shift
Gel is the water-based, non-greasy format that suits oily and acne-prone skin and hot, humid climates where a rich cream is a non-starter. It sits inside a broader movement the entire category is making: sun care textures have become lighter, more transparent, and more elegant, which is one of the main reasons daily SPF uptake is rising. The watery, "milky" K-beauty textures are the clearest expression — the ones that made people want to put on sunscreen rather than tolerating it.
Para uma marca, gel is more of a positioning tool than a volume play. It signals a specific audience — oily skin, invisible wear, modern texture — without much copy, and it lets a newer brand claim a clear customer segment instead of fighting every all-purpose lotion for attention. It carries fewer rich skincare claims than a cream, so treat it as a feel-first format. But in a market where feel is increasingly what sells a sunscreen, that is not a weakness.
VI. What the Data Adds Up To
Read together, the picture is consistent. Lotion and cream hold the volume — 54% of the market — but also the most competition, and the brands growing inside that space are the ones selling hybrids (skin tints, primers, moisturisers with SPF) rather than plain sunscreen. The fastest growth and the clearest differentiation are at the edges: sticks and cushions on the face, sprays for the body, gels and lightweight fluids for specific audiences. And the formats at the edges are harder to make, which is precisely what makes them an opening — fewer manufacturers bother, so fewer brands compete there.
Two things that trip up founders choosing a format. Primeiro, format and filter are separate decisions: whether your sunscreen uses mineral or chemical UV filters is a different axis that interacts with format — mineral systems are harder to keep invisible in a spray, por exemplo, and mineral sticks are harder to keep spreadable. Segundo, the format sets your packaging, ferramentas, quantidades mínimas de pedido, and cost per unit, so it needs to be priced in from the start, not discovered later. The full sequencing is in the guide on how to start a sunscreen brand.
For brands targeting cosmetic-regulated markets, the practical takeaway is to choose the format that fits the customer — and then find a manufacturer with the formulation depth to actually make it well, especially if it is one of the difficult ones. Ausmetics has worked across every major sunscreen format for more than 28 anos, with in-house SPF screening and ISO 22716 (GMPC) Produção, which lets a brand compete in the formats where capability is scarce rather than settling for whatever a factory is limited to. You can explore the options with an experienced Fabricante de protetor solar OEM, ou talk to our team about which format fits yours.
Perguntas frequentes
Which sunscreen format should a new brand launch first?
It depends on where a brand wants to compete. Lotion and cream hold around 54% of the market, so they offer volume but fierce competition, and an undifferentiated SPF lotion is a hard sell when the shelf is already full. Sticks and cushions are growing faster and are easier to differentiate, but they are harder to formulate. The strongest choice matches the target customer to a format the manufacturer can genuinely make well — the brands breaking through right now are the ones that picked a format, made it excellent, and built the brand around that experience.
Is spray sunscreen as effective as lotion?
In testing, yes — every format is assessed at the same fixed dose under ISO 24444, so a spray and a lotion with the same SPF perform equally on paper. Na prática, a gap can open up because people tend to apply less spray than the tested amount and wind carries some away. A spray protects just as well as a lotion if the user applies a generous, even layer and rubs it in. Para marcas, that means clear application guidance is part of selling a spray, not an afterthought.
Are sunscreen sticks a good opportunity for a new brand?
They can be a strong one. The face sunscreen stick segment is valued at around $752 million and projected toward $1.1 bilhões por 2034, with private-label participation remaining limited because sticks are harder to formulate and keep stable in heat. That scarcity creates an opening: a brand whose stick applies evenly and survives transit competes in a space many others avoid. The bar is formulation quality, not marketing budget, which favors brands that choose their manufacturer carefully.
What sunscreen format works best for oily skin?
A gel or lightweight fluid. Gels are water-based, absorb quickly, and are less likely to clog pores, which suits oily and acne-prone skin and hot, humid markets. The broader shift toward light, "milky" K-beauty textures sits in the same territory. Para uma marca, a gel doubles as a comfort choice and a clear positioning signal — it says "for oily skin, invisible wear" without much copy.
Does the format change a sunscreen's SPF?
Não. SPF is measured at a fixed application amount regardless of format, so the tested number reflects the formula, not whether it is a lotion, gel, Spray, or stick. What the format changes is how much protection the user actually gets in practice, because some formats are easier to apply at the full, even dose than others. That is a real-world difference in delivered protection, not a difference in the rated SPF.
Where the Openings Are
The shelf still belongs to lotion and cream, and it probably always will. But the brands that broke through recently — Supergoop with an invisible gel sold as a primer, Beauty of Joseon with a featherlight fluid that went viral on feel alone, Salt & Stone with a face stick that signaled lifestyle — all did it by picking a format, making it excellent, and building a brand around the experience rather than the SPF number. The data backs the pattern: the growth, the social momentum, and the room to differentiate are in the formats at the edges, and those formats are the hardest to make. Scarce capability is where a newer brand wins.