Picking your cocoa.
Five tints. Three approaches. A practical guide to using the shade slider.
The shade slider on the Sunnbalm product page steps through five tints: Linen, Honey, Amber, Bronze, Walnut. These are not skin-tone descriptors. They're descriptions of the cocoa percentage in the batch. Linen is nearly bare — a faint warm cream. Walnut is rich, dark brown. The three in between are a smooth gradient.
How do you pick yours? There are three approaches.
Match your skin tone. This is the most common approach: slide until the swatch on the page matches the back of your hand, and order that level. The balm will then sit on your skin without leaving a visible color shift — invisible application. Choose Linen if you have very fair skin. Choose Walnut if you have deep skin. Most people land in Honey or Amber.
Push deeper than your skin tone. Some customers like Sunnbalm a half-shade or full-shade darker than their natural skin. The result is a very subtle warm tint when applied — like a slight sun-warmed glow. This is the 'I want to see it doing something' approach. We don't recommend it for the first jar because it can read as makeup; but it's an option once you know the balm.
Stay light, regardless of skin tone. Some customers — across all skin tones — prefer Linen because they don't want any color shift at all. The balm goes on near-clear, no tint visible. This is the most discreet option and the closest experience to using an untinted body balm. We get a lot of Linen orders.
A few practical notes on shade picking.
The slider preview shows what the balm looks like in the tin. That's not exactly what it looks like on skin. On skin, the cocoa lightens slightly as it melts into the lipid layer and spreads. The 'wet' version is always a quarter-shade lighter than the 'dry' tin.
Cocoa shades shift in different lighting. Indoor warm light makes them look more orange; outdoor daylight pulls them more neutral; fluorescent light flattens them. The truest read is in daylight near a window.
Cocoa darkens slightly over the first week as it equilibrates in the lipid matrix. If you receive a fresh jar and the color looks slightly off, give it a few days before judging. After that, it's stable for the full shelf life.
If you order a shade and it isn't right, write to us. We'll send a different shade. We track which shade each customer ordered (anonymously, just for the supplier batch) and can adjust.
The slider is a guess at first. After one jar, you'll know what you want.