Notes on sun, skin, and what we put on both.
The thinking behind our line, the people we make it for, and the things we wish more brands would just say.
- Letters
Letter to our first customers.
How we run the business, why we'll sometimes be out of stock, and what to do if your jar is anything less than perfect.
Read - Education
How to read an ingredient label.
INCI labels follow rules. Once you know them, you can scan a product and know roughly what you're buying in thirty seconds.
Read - Philosophy
Four ingredients on purpose.
You can build a body balm with four ingredients or with twenty-four. The industry mostly does the second thing. We picked the first.
Read - Color
Picking your cocoa.
Five tints. Three approaches. A practical guide to using the shade slider.
Read - Formulation
Why we built it on tallow.
A note on lipid profiles, ancestral skin-care, and what petrochemicals replaced when they replaced animal fat in body balms.
Read - Ingredients
What zinc oxide actually is.
A mineral that's been in topical skincare for a hundred and fifty years. Particle size matters more than people realise.
Read - Routine
A balm a day.
How the team behind Sunnbalm actually uses the product. Morning, evening, in between.
Read - Transparency
What we leave out, and why.
The list of things NOT in Sunnbalm is longer than the list of things in it. Here are the harder exclusions, explained.
Read - Color
Cocoa as pigment.
How food-grade cocoa lets us hit five shade-matched tints with one ingredient instead of a synthetic-pigment cocktail.
Read - Place
Why we made it in Minnesota.
Not California, not New York. A small batch facility within driving distance of two of our four suppliers.
Read - Packaging
Apothecary, by design.
Glass body, metal lid, printed label, wide mouth. Every packaging decision and why we made it.
Read - Process
The render.
Rendering tallow is one of the oldest cooking processes in human history. The method we use, why we picked it.
Read - Education
Lipid barrier 101.
What your skin's outer layer is actually made of, why it matters, and how lipid-rich balms support it.
Read - Ingredients
Beeswax, briefly.
What bees give us. Six thousand years of body-care history, three structural reasons it's in Sunnbalm.
Read - History
Tallow vs. lotion — a brief history.
How the body-care aisle went from rendered animal fat to water-based emulsions in eighty years. And why the pendulum is starting to swing back.
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