The Future of Sunscreen: Clean, Mineral, and Award-Winning

Hello and welcome to the Conscious Design Podcast. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and I help turn product ideas into sustainable 7-figure businesses. Join me for another episode where sustainability meets innovation and business savvy. Today, I'm really excited to have Ariel Moody. She's the CEO and co-founder of Mama Soul. They are keeping skin protected with 100% mineral sunscreen. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I'm really excited to dive into everything about this. But the first question, everybody loves a good origin story. So let's go back in time a little bit. What got you to decide to start this and get into sunscreen business?

Yeah. So when I was 5 months pregnant with my first son, I started researching ingredients to avoid when you're pregnant or nursing. And the list was so long and I couldn't find one that I loved. Sunscreen was just so toxic. So I have over 15 years of beauty industry experience. I work for brands like Smashbox, Dr. Perricone, Bite Beauty, and then most recently left my job in January to go all into Mama Sol. I was VP of sales for a beauty packaging and formulation company. So my background focuses on sustainability, formula, and packaging. And so when I couldn't find what I loved, one that didn't leave a white cast, one that smelled good, one that didn't make me feel greasy and want to wash my face and smell like coconuts. I hired a chemist and created it on my own. We launched in 2023 with our first formula, and then, which is our face sunscreen. And then in 2024, which is just last year, we launched our body and our lip oils, which have just recently won 3 awards, the lip oils and the body in the last month or two.

Amazing. Well, congrats on that. That's a lot of progress over the last couple of years.

Thank you so much.

Yeah. Well, I'm very familiar with the mineral sunscreens issues that you've mentioned. My wife has been buying that stuff for a long time. You know, they're good use, but not exactly, especially when you get to having teenagers, they really don't want to put on just white paste all Teenagers, you know, I have a 4 and 7-year-old boys and they hate wearing sunscreen.

So that was another part of our mission was to make it so that kids wanna wear it too.

Yeah, it's hard enough. You don't want 'em to hate it. So let's talk a little bit about, so you started with the face sunscreen. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what, why that one? Right. There's multiple, well, not everybody knows, but there's face sunscreen and there's regular sunscreen. What kind of was the leading to go, yeah, face sunscreen is the one I should tackle first?

Well, I'm heavily passionate about preserving my skin, just protecting it from the sun, but just wanting to preserve beautiful, smooth, and, you know, including anti-aging. Right. That was a big part of it. So our face sunscreen is a 3-in-1. It's your SPF, your daily moisturizer with anti-aging benefits, and also a skin smoothing makeup primer all in one. If you are a man, you can wear it too. It just smooths the look of your skin naturally using an ingredient called squalene, which is extremely hydrating to the skin. Our formulas also completely— everything in the line is silicone-free, which is really rare with mineral sunscreen because silicone suspends zinc oxide and prevents separation, and it gives you a kind of smooth finish.

Okay.

Silicones are not biodegradable and they tend to clog your pores. So 2 reasons why we decided not to use silicones, and they're in the majority of sunscreens on the market. So that was really, really difficult to formulate in the first— that took us 5 years to develop the first formula between having 2 kids and a pandemic. That, that would— I would attribute that to the 5 years. But yeah, we started with the face. It's also packaged in glass, so the Besides the fact that we want people to want to use it every day, right? And how do you do that? It has to look pretty so that you're gonna put it on your bathroom counter so that you're going to be reminded to use it every day. That's number one. And then number two, I wanted to make it elevated feel with glass. But also there's two reasons why we use glass. Glass obviously is better for the environment. It's less chemical plastic leaching into our soil when it does end up in the landfill. And then number 2, 80% of women's hormones are out of balance. Men's are too, obviously. And a lot of it has to do with microplastics. And what people don't realize is that when you're filling a plastic bottle, plastic tube, or something like that, you are actually going to have microplastics in the formula, and then it's going on your skin. So our face and our lip are in glass, and then our body sunscreen is in 100% sugarcane bioresin to eliminate the use of petrochemicals in the sleeve.

Amazing. Sugar-based bioresin.

Sugarcane. Yep.

That's amazing. I actually haven't heard that one. So that's the, 'cause I saw there was a tube. That's the tube.

The tube is made of sugarcane. It has the same feel as plastic, except it's not made with petrochemicals. It's made from 100% sugarcane.

Right. Oh, that's awesome. That's really cool.

It just essentially will degrade much more quickly than raw plastics.

Right. The other thing I think of in with glass, 'cause I've, I've worked some in the cosmetics world, is, you know, it elevates it, but it also is neutral. It doesn't react to what you put in there.

Exactly.

There's no chemicals.

It definitely, it definitely helps when, 'cause there's so much testing involved with sunscreen. And so for compatibility testing, it was A surefire way to pass.

Yeah. So it took you 5 years to formulate it. Obviously pandemic and stuff, right? But still, it's a lot of effort to get it formulated. What was the process like to get it? You know, you mentioned testing and that's a huge, huge piece where you got to prove SPF on it. Plus you have to actually put it on faces.

Yeah, there's a ton of testing that goes into it. It was really challenging. I went through 3 different chemists. My first chemist, just to give your listeners just a little insight in what it takes to really do this. I mean, any kind launch any business, you're gonna go through trials and tribulations, and you're gonna make mistakes. And so, I mean, I hired a chemist. He really had no business formulating sunscreen. Let's just say that. And he couldn't get it together. He couldn't make the formula. We wasted a lot of time working. Then we hired somebody to fix that formula. That didn't work. I said, okay, you know what? We need to start from scratch. So I hired a new chemist and she was amazing. Passed with flying colors and had ex— it did exactly what I wanted it to do, which was to hydrate the skin, leave it feeling like it was glowing. It smells like a subtle hint of lavender essential oil, so it encourages you to take a deep breath with each use. Yeah, it took a lot and we finally found the right chemist for us.

I mean, it's, it's everything is hard when you put products together and launch them, but chemistry is its own thing that it's, you think it's easy and then you realize just how complex formulation is. And it's, it's amazing what goes into formulation. It really is.

It really is. I'm always like, can you make this change? They're like, do you know what that means exactly? Like, it's not just a small little change. Like it, there's so much that goes into every little change. So yeah. I totally agree.

Yeah. I feel like everyone who isn't in formulation, we all think of it as like baking. You're like, well, I have a cookie, I just throw chocolate chips and now it's a chocolate chip cookie.

Yeah.

And they're like, technically yes, but you won't like it.

It won't— Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I highly advise against trying to make your own sunscreen in your kitchen. Let's just say that there's so much more that goes into this testing than just putting things zinc into it with a bunch of other ingredients. They all have to work in a certain way together, certain percentages. They have to be tested. There's so much fearmongering around sunscreen and chemicals. And so we can talk about that later, just about the difference between mineral and chemical sunscreen. I think that would be interesting probably for your listeners too.

Yeah. Well, why wait? I mean, everybody's—

Yeah.

Familiar with sunscreen, right? What I know, and you know, but for everyone listening, how would you sum up the biggest difference between standard sunscreen that everybody's probably grew up with and mineral sunscreen?

Yeah, I think the— to differentiate them, it's chemical or mineral. So mineral sunscreen is either it says zinc oxide or titanium dioxide on the active ingredient. If it says anything else, it's chem— The difference is mineral sunscreen sits on top of your skin like a physical shield, physically deflecting the reflecting off the UV rays. Chemical sunscreen has to absorb into the for about 15 to 20 minutes for it to work. It absorbs the UV rays into the. So that's the difference in how it works. And so one of the reasons that I wanted to launch a mineral sunscreen besides the fact that when you're pregnant or nursing, you can only use mineral sunscreen. And also, if you have sensitive skin, acneic skin, all of those things, it's highly recommended to just use mineral. But also there's an ingredient called— that chemical sunscreen use that's called avobenzone, which is a UVA blocker, and it's not photostable, which means it degrades in the sun. So it's really not the best way to protect your skin from UVA rays. So zinc is—

Oh, okay.

In the United States, zinc is the best proven way to protect your skin from UVA rays, which is aging rays and also cancer-causing rays.

Hey, it's your host, Ian. I'm really glad you're enjoying this episode. I absolutely love highlighting amazing brands and founders for the awesome things they are doing. I've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and businesses like yours turn their boldest ideas into powerful, purpose-driven brands. So if you're serious about building a brand people love, like our guests and clients do, and one that you're proud to stand behind, I invite you to dive a bit deeper with our book Conscious Design. Inside, you'll discover the exact framework and steps we use to help entrepreneurs like you turn purpose into a powerful impact-driven brand, brand that stands out, attracts loyal customers, and drives sustainable growth with social and environmental responsibility woven into its DNA. Grab your copy today. You can find it on our website, consciousdesignhouse.com, or just find the link below in the show notes. Enjoy the rest of the episode and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. Is there a big difference between the titanium dioxide and zinc oxide? Obviously you had to sit down and decide which one to pick. How did you do that?

Yeah, so zinc oxide's cleaner. Titanium dioxide, I couldn't go into too much detail on it because I just knew that I wanted to use zinc, so I didn't do a ton of research on titanium dioxide. But I can tell you that titanium dioxide is Thicker and it leaves more of a white cast, which you don't want. You don't. You don't want that. Exactly.

Let's talk through. So you launched your face one. Obviously that did well enough for you to go, yeah, this is good. Let's keep going. Let's develop. But could you talk a little bit about, you know, what was that like? What was the first responses from people? And what was it that made you say, yeah, it's, it's successful? I should do more sunscreen.

So within 3 weeks of our launching, organically featured on Access Hollywood, and that was a really amazing way to give us just credibility and to validate what we were doing. So after we— that happened, we immediately started hitting the go button on the next 2 formulas. We created our body sunscreen, which just won Best Body SPF from Shape magazine. And then we launched our 100% mineral tinted lip oils. They're called Liprella, and they just won Best Lip Gloss with SPF from New Beauty, which is one of the top publications in the beauty industry. And then it just won Best Tinted Lip Oil from Shop Today Awards. This all just happened in the last like month or two.

Well, yeah, that's a big boost. Do you know how you got organically? I mean, I'm sure there's somebody who's been trying to figure out how to organically just get on?

So we've had PR this whole time, but what ended up happening was they gave our sunscreen to somebody at People Magazine, and that editor loved it so much she gave it to somebody at Access Hollywood, and that's how that happened. So we didn't directly go to Access Hollywood and say, can you put us on?

I think that's, that's always great when you have something like that happen, 'cause you know it's actually genuine.

Yeah.

And you're not like, uh, why did they pick me? You're like, oh no, they loved it so much they told someone.

Right. That's the best compliment.

Exactly. Exactly. One of the things that you talk about, right, is the safety for pregnant moms, right? Could you talk a little bit about that? That I know that was one of the starting points of you just researching, going, ah, there's nothing out there. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. So pregnant or nursing women cannot use chemicals on screen. You just can't. So you have to use mineral. And so that was, and so every ingredient we used, every single one was vetted to make sure that it wasn't gonna irritate pregnant or nursing women's skin, even down to the scent of the lavender essential oil. You know, essential oils can be problematic. You can't use certain essential oils when you're pregnant.

Yes.

So we made sure that lavender, which is very safe for pregnant nursing women, actually it's encouraged because it's very calming. We didn't use too much of it, right? It's very subtle because when you're pregnant, your senses are heightened. So we just wanted to make sure that it wasn't gonna offend Anybody. So, you know, even if you don't like lavender, it's really just a subtle, really beautiful scent that's gonna just encourage a deep breath. And that's really what we wanted. When I was researching those ingredients not to use, it was really, what do we want to have in there? And then vetted those with— we have— my mom is actually a world-renowned eye and laser surgeon, and she helped actually vet a lot of the ingredients with her, along with my cousin who is an OB-GYN. And so we've made sure that every ingredient that is used in the formula is safe for pregnant or nursing women, safer around your eyes, which is why my mom's so heavily weighed in as well.

Right. Yeah, that's super important, right? You're smearing it all over your face. It should be— and you don't always think about it, but it should be good for your eyes.

Yeah. Well, millions of people suffer from dry eye in the United States. And so my mom has done some studies and she's just found that mineral sunscreen is just better for the health of the eye than chemical when you are dealing with dry eye.

I mean, that makes sense. Yeah, seems to be just better in every way. Uh, I haven't found a downside other than some of the application— well, the silicone part where it's a little slimy. Yeah, that part was always weird for me.

I think that people don't realize that mineral sunscreen has evolved in the last several years, and zinc dispersions are much better than they used to be. And so not to be scared by mineral sunscreen any longer and leaving a white cast. Obviously, certain ones are better than others. It's more expensive to use zinc dispersions that don't leave a white cast, so you have to invest in it. But they do exist and they are out there.

Have you explored— because one of the sunscreen things is a convenient spray on— is that something that's even possible with Mineral sunscreen?

You can. Yeah, you can do it with a mineral sunscreen. There are aerosols. I've seen aerosol sprays and non-aerosol sprays, but aerosol sprays, we don't want to ever launch one aerosol just because it's not the safest for the environment. Also, this is the thing about we really want our customers to use what's effective. And so sprays are just not as effective as using a lotion. A lot of it ends up in the air and you can't really tell how much you're getting actually on your skin. So if you're gonna use a spray, I highly recommend using it as a touchup, not as your only defense against the sun.

Right. So doing more like a base layer and then adding more as you want. Yeah.

I mean, exactly. Like if you're just like quickly going outside for a walk and you don't feel like putting sunscreen on, you know, a whole layer of lotion on, you can just spray your skin. But if you're planning to be out in the sun for long periods of time, I highly recommend using a lotion.

Makes sense. Makes sense. So looking forward, you have a few products out. Is there anything else in the sunscreen area that you haven't touched that you want to, or give us a little peek into where you're thinking of going with this brand?

Yeah. So we have 3 new products launching next year. I can just share that 2 of them will be tinted, which has been one of our biggest requests. And then we're going to launch another body form for a more active lifestyle.

Well, that'll be exciting to see, to see that when you start— guys start sharing.

Yeah, we're— look out for us. It should be launching next spring.

Perfect. Spring 2026. That'll be— that's exciting then. That's— you're doubling your product line again.

We are.

Just from, you know, doing this, how has this road— has this trip been for you in launching I know there's— it's not always perfectly smooth. We talked a little bit about some stuff, right? You've done this through a pandemic. You just mentioned the fires in LA, right? There's been a lot of things along the way, but it seems like it's going really well and you're excited.

Yeah. So our sales year to date are up 165% from last year. That's a huge milestone for us. It just shows that we're going in the right direction. We just launched on a big um, clean beauty e-commerce site called Grove Collaborative. If you've heard of Thrive Market, it's kind of similar to that. So that was our first launch outside of spa.

Yeah.

So just so everybody understands where we're sold, we're sold in places like the Four Seasons. We just went into our 11th Four Seasons, places like the Fairmont Hotels, Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Carmel Valley Ranch in Northern California. So very high-end spas and resorts, and they use us in When they're— after they give a facial, they finish with Mama Sol sunscreen and it's just— they love it. It's been selling amazing. That's been kind of our bread and butter.

Yeah, I was, I was going to ask kind of what's your spread in terms of customers? And obviously you have spas, the spa resort level, direct-to-consumer kind of where, where is getting the most interest right now?

Yeah, it's definitely— I'd say we're 80% Spa and resort, and then 20% D2C, right? So we started out doing Meta ads when we first launched and we did it for like a year and we got barely any ROI on it. Return on investment for those who don't know that. It was painful and a mistake that I wish we pulled the plug sooner, but we kept trying to pivot and pivot. Now we have enough data that we feel confident going at it again. So we've taken the leap again. We're starting it out, but you really gotta know what your intentions are before you do Meta ads. And really figure out what metrics you wanna hit before you go all in, because it could be a big waste of money otherwise. But we're hoping that that is gonna increase our D2C.

What is your goal? I mean, do you wanna be more D2C or do you see this resort luxury kind of B2B side keep on growing?

Yeah, no, I, we wanna definitely expand in the B2B resort spa world, but we also wanna go into retail as well. So that's going to be another play we make. But it's really important for us to do this organically and really gain traction in a way that, you know, people like— just the other day, it was so cool. I was— this was a really cool moment for me as a founder. I was getting a pedicure and I was sitting next to a beautiful pregnant woman. She was getting her nails done and she said, what do you do? And I said, I own a sunscreen brand called Mama Sol. And she said, oh my God, I use your sunscreen. And I was like, oh, you know, that's just so amazing, you know, for me to hear that because we're a small brand, we're only 2 years old, and that's kind of what it's all about. And so she said one of her estheticians recommended it. Actually, 2 of her estheticians had recommended it to her. So, you know, it's things like that. It's moments like that that really get me excited and keep me going.

Yeah. Nothing beats getting to meet someone that knows what you do out in the wild. And be excited about it and get positive. I've had that too, and it's very invigorating.

Yeah, it made me— it definitely gave me a pep in my step.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'd like to talk a little bit because you, you talked about, uh, it took you 5 years to do the formulation and all this stuff, and people don't always think about the things, right? Because you're technically a 2-year-old brand, but you've been working on this way longer. And then just 2 years. When exactly, like, could you give a brief timeline of like the day you're like, I can't find this for myself, to now where you actually like, I have this and I just met a pregnant mama who's using my product?

I can tell you a few things how this all got going. So before I was even pregnant, I had a psychic reading, and in that psychic reading she said to me You're gonna launch a very successful. This is what she said. Her words, not mine. A very successful skin clean skincare brand. She said it's gonna be like the Honest Company. And at the time, I knew I wanted to launch my own brand, but I didn't know what it was gonna be. And I actually started my career out as a makeup artist, so I thought I was it was going to be in makeup. And so I was sketching makeup concepts and all of these things. So when she said I was gonna launch a clean skincare brand, it was so. Far off from what I actually thought I was going to do. And then of course it ended up happening, which is kind of wild. So that planted the seed about 6 months prior to what happened next, which was when I was 5 months pregnant, I was working at a company and they ended up laying me along with several others off while I was pregnant. It was quite shocking. I'd been at the company for many years. And it was a really hard time for me. This happened on a Friday. And on that Monday, I woke up and said, I'm writing the business plan today. And I wrote the business plan for Mama Soul on that Monday. And I haven't looked back since.

Amazing. And how, so from business plan to brand launch was the 5 years of you working on that formula? Correct.

Yeah, it was, it was more like, it wasn't just the formula. It was working on the formula. It was working on the branding, the ethos, the mission, you know, hiring a branding agency to help figure out like, what are our colors? I mean, it was every little detail leading up to it. Once you launch, there are about, I mean, leading up to launch is really one of part of the hardest part of launching a business. And once you launch, there's still a ton of work to do. I mean, I, I have 2 kids, 4 and 7, and I think balancing mom life with this is challenging. And, you know, just the, this past week I was at a, working at a coffee shop till 9:00 PM at night. So it's not, you gotta put the work in, but if you believe that you're gonna make it happen and you believe in manifestation and you, you just, no matter what, you just keep going, you're gonna get what you want.

Don't give up. I mean, quitting is where you fail, right? And that's if you believe. Yeah, you don't, then you should quit.

If your product sucks, quit.

That too. Or improve it. You can. Yeah, but drop that one. Yeah. Well, this has been quite, quite a journey. I'm really excited to see your new products come out. Yeah, I think this is a great story of you just getting the work right, and I think that's And it's part of why I do this is to help highlight for people, like, it's, there's a lot of work that goes into it. The, I always love the quote, or maybe it's not a quote saying whatever it is, the overnight 10-year success where you don't always realize how much stuff goes into it. And then you're, you're hitting it off and you're getting, getting down, you're running and you're, and then you realize you're sprinting later.

Yeah.

It builds, but you kind of have to— it's good to stop and take a look back and go, oh yeah, it's been, it's been for you 7 and a half years since the seed was planted.

Yeah.

And now you're winning awards.

Yeah.

And meeting people who will buy your product.

Yep. And I think the biggest turning point for us and just for anyone listening, like, how did we get here? It's like, I just going to trade shows, really putting yourself out there. I started the way I got into my first accounts was literally just making a list of local spas around the area and knocking on doors. So you've got to put the work in. Takes time. And we're still not, you know, we're still not there. We're still— we're about— we're scaling right now and it's a ton of work. But if you believe in what you're doing and you stick with it, I think it really is worth it. And I love what I do every day.

Yeah. And, and you mentioned too, and I want to touch on this, as of January, You're full-time on this, correct?

Yeah. So when the fires happened in LA, which is where we own a home, kids and my husband, we decided to come out to Newport Beach, what we thought was gonna be temporary, and then decided to rent out our home and for at least a year minimum and allow me to scale the business. So we're living at my mom's beautiful place in Newport Beach. I'm very lucky to We have ocean views, we can walk to the beach, so I'm not complaining. But of course it's not our space. And, right, you know, we had to move our whole life and, but we believe in this brand so wholeheartedly. We know that if I'm just given the time and the space to, to really just put everything into it, that it's gonna grow to what we dream, we dream it can be.

Amazing. This has been really fun talking to you and learning more about you and your journey and the brand. I said more products. You're doubling your product line here. I know tinted sunscreen is a big market too, so I'm glad you're, you're jumping into that market. Before we wrap though, is there— I just want to give you the opportunity if there's anything else you wanted to add or mention.

Anybody listening who wants to try our products, you can go to our website, shopmamasoul.com. That's mamasoul.com. and use the code CONSCIOUSMAMA15, that's M-A-M-A-15, and get 15% off of anything you want on the site. I assure you, you will not be disappointed. You can also follow us on Instagram @shopmamasoul.

Perfect. And for everyone who is listening and watching, there will be links in the description, so please use that and definitely check out the products. They are awesome. And thanks for being on the show.

Thank you so much.

And that wraps up another episode of the Conscious Design Podcast. If today's episode inspired you to bring your product idea to life and turn it into a sustainable 7-figure business, visit petermanfirm.com or click the link below. Your ideas have the power to change the world, and we're here to help make that happen. Thank you for joining us, and I'll see you on the next episode.