Bespoke sun care manufacturing

Private label sunscreen for face, body, scalp and lips

For premium wellness brands selling in the UK and the EU, we work as a private label sunscreen manufacturer, developing and making bespoke SPF moisturisers, fluids and primers, body lotions, pump and clear sprays, sticks, scalp mists and SPF lip products in Leicester. We build every formula on UV filters from the UK and EU permitted lists, chosen for broad, photostable protection, and test it for SPF and UVA protection at accredited partner laboratories. Each product comes with its SPF dossier: the specification, the SPF, UVA, stability and challenge test reports, the CPSR and a certificate of analysis for every batch, including an assay of its UV filters.

Some private label sunscreen is a stock formula with your name on it. Bespoke development gives your brand its own filter system, texture and test data. Your formula is yours, with its specification and SPF dossier, as our formula ownership commitment sets out.

• Daily SPF for the face. Moisturisers, fluids, serums and primers in high and very high protection, and light sun creams from our Korean-style skincare range.
• Body sun care. Lotions, creams and milks, including water-resistant formulas, developed alongside our body care range.
• Sprays and sticks. Pump lotion sprays and clear sprays built on organic filters only, and face and body sticks with mineral or organic filters.
• Scalp SPF. Light mists and fluids for the parting and hairline, built to leave hair clean, made beside our haircare, scalp care and body and hair mist ranges.
• SPF lip products. Balms and sticks with SPF, developed with our lip care range.
• Climate-ready formulas. Textures that stay stable in heat and humidity, and antioxidant blends for pollution claims, each backed by tests on the finished product.

Circana reports that US prestige skincare growth in the first half of 2026 was led by body care and sun care, with sun care sales up 19%, while sunscreen gained in both dollar and unit sales in mass retail (Circana, August 2026). Our skincare and cosmetic manufacturing hub covers the full range.

How a sun care project runs

Our research and development team runs each project from brief to scale-up. We agree SPF and UVA targets, format, finish and claims, screen filter combinations in vitro on laboratory samples, and send you samples to judge. The lead sample goes into stability and photostability testing in its final pack, the final formula goes to full SPF and UVA testing, and a pilot batch confirms the process before the first production run. R&D is a paid stage that can be included with an order of the right size.

Bemotrizinol, avobenzone or zinc oxide: building the filter system

Filters permitted in the UK and the EU

In both markets, a sunscreen is a cosmetic, and its UV filters must come from the annex of permitted filters, within their limits and conditions. The two lists are close but not identical, so we design to the stricter one, which lets a single formula sell in both.

In June 2026, FDA added bemotrizinol to its permitted sunscreen actives at up to 6%, the first new active in the US sunscreen monograph since the late 1990s (FDA, 2026). UK and EU brands can already use it: bemotrizinol is permitted in both markets at up to 10%.

Film, photostability and water resistance

The European Commission's sunscreen Recommendation notes that labelled protection comes from 2 mg of product per square centimetre of skin, about six teaspoons for an average adult body. Protection depends on how evenly the filters spread into that film, so we design the emulsion, emollients and film-formers around the filters. Mineral filters are dispersed to avoid clumps and a heavy white cast, and solid filters dissolved in emollients that keep them in solution in the cold.

Some filters also lose protection as they absorb light. In oil-in-water sunscreens irradiated with simulated sunlight, bemotrizinol protected avobenzone, more so at higher concentrations, and protected ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, which avobenzone otherwise destabilises (Chatelain and Gabard, Photochemistry and Photobiology, 2001). Water resistance also comes from the film: water-in-oil emulsions and film-forming polymers hold filters on wet skin, and the claim follows immersion testing.

Sticks, sprays, scalp and lip formats

Sticks are anhydrous: waxes and oils carry high filter loads, and we cool them under control so filters don't crystallise and the stick doesn't crack or sweat in heat. Clear sprays and scalp mists carry the filters in alcohol and light esters, so they dry fast and leave hair clean, under the same alcohol controls as our mists. Lip products need filters whose conditions allow lip use, a neutral taste and a texture that stays put.

Organic filters dissolved, mineral filters dispersed

1. Specify. We agree the specification with you: filters and levels, SPF and UVA targets, format, claims, pack, markets and shelf life, with every filter screened against the UK and EU annexes.
2. Approve suppliers. Every material comes from a supplier approved before use and reviewed every year. Filters arrive with certificates of analysis, and mineral grades with particle size, coating and nano status confirmed.
3. Make. For lotions and creams, solid organic filters are dissolved in the heated oil phase, mineral filters are dispersed under high shear, and the batch is emulsified and cooled under controlled mixing. Clear sprays and scalp mists are blended cold in closed, earthed vessels in our alcohol handling zone. Sticks and lip products are melted, filled hot and cooled under control.
4. Check in process. Appearance, odour, viscosity, fill weight and, for emulsions, pH are checked against the specification, and filter dispersion under the microscope.
5. Fill and label. Products are filled into tubes, pumps, spray bottles, sticks or lip tubes, and labels are verified on every batch.
6. Test, retain and release. Every batch is tested by accredited partner laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025) as part of every order, including an assay of its UV filters, three retained samples per batch are kept for shelf life plus one year, and quality control releases every batch against its specification.

Packs and documents

Sun care lives in hot bags and cars, so we test every pack with your formula: tubes and caps for stress cracking, pumps for output and spray pattern, sticks for shape in warm storage. Every unit carries its batch code and a best before date or period-after-opening symbol set by the stability results. Each product comes with its specification, a certificate of analysis for every batch, its SPF, UVA, stability and challenge test reports, the CPSR, and the product information file for your Responsible Person: the dossier behind the protection on your pack.

SPF, UVA and water resistance, tested to ISO methods

Before launch, every product has a cosmetic product safety report (CPSR), signed by a qualified safety assessor who compares each ingredient's expected exposure with its safety data. Sun care is used generously: the SCCS Notes of Guidance count a sunscreen at 18.0 g a day, against 7.82 g for a body lotion, and each filter is assessed at that exposure. For sprays, the assessor also needs the droplet size distribution through the final pump. The SCCS regards droplets up to 100 micrometres across as inhalable, and some pump nozzles produce very fine droplets, so we measure every spray. We run the test programme with accredited partner laboratories:

• SPF and UVA protection to the current ISO methods: ISO 24444 for SPF on volunteers; ISO 24443 for UVA protection and critical wavelength in vitro; ISO 23675, the in vitro double plate method for SPF in emulsions and alcohol-based one-phase products; and ISO 23698, which measures SPF, UVA protection and critical wavelength by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The double plate method excludes sticks and powders, so we choose the method set for each format.
• Water resistance by timed water immersion on volunteers to ISO 16217, with the share of SPF kept calculated to ISO 18861.
• Photostability on every new formula: UV absorbance before and after a controlled dose of simulated sunlight, with filter content checked by HPLC.
• Stability in the final pack, accelerated and real-time, with heat and cold cycling, tracking appearance, odour, pH, viscosity, filter content and crystals, with SPF screened in vitro on aged samples. Our stability and shelf life testing page sets out the method.
• Compatibility between formula and pack, and challenge testing to ISO 11930 for every product that contains water; anhydrous sticks and high-alcohol sprays can be assessed as low microbiological risk under ISO 29621.
• Claims tests arranged with specialist partners: patch tests under dermatological supervision, consumer perception tests, and the tests behind antioxidant or pollution claims.

We make every product in our Leicester facility, which is ISO 9001 certified by BSI, and the certificate's scope includes cosmetics.

SPF categories, UVA ratios and why US sunscreen is a drug

This is the position as of October 2026.

• Great Britain. We arrange the CPSR and build the product file for your UK Responsible Person, who notifies the product through SCPN before sale.
• European Union and Northern Ireland. The same file supports CPNP notification by your Responsible Person in the EU, or in Northern Ireland for that market.
• United States. Sunscreen, including an SPF moisturiser, is an over-the-counter drug in the US, so US sun care runs as a separate drug programme, which we set up on request. Our FDA registration is a food facility registration for dietary supplements and does not cover sunscreen.

Sunscreen labels in the UK and the EU

We label every UK and EU product to the European Commission's sunscreen Recommendation. The SPF sits in one of four categories, shown at least as prominently as the number:

• UVA protection. A UVA protection factor of at least a third of the labelled SPF, and a critical wavelength of at least 370 nm.
• Claims we never print. "Sunblock", "total protection" or any other promise of complete protection, and any claim that the product never needs reapplying.
• Warnings and directions. Lines such as "Do not stay too long in the sun, even while using a sunscreen product", directions to reapply often, especially after swimming, perspiring or towelling, and a warning that applying less lowers protection significantly.

Every other claim, from water resistance to a dry-touch finish, rests on its own test report, written into the specification before the first sample. Start your project with your formats, SPF targets and markets.

References: Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products (2009); Commission Recommendation 2006/647/EC on the efficacy of sunscreen products (2006); Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/2195 on homosalate and other substances (2022); SCCS Notes of Guidance, 12th revision (2023); ISO 23675 and ISO 23698, sun protection test methods (2024); Chatelain and Gabard, Photochemistry and Photobiology (2001); US FDA, final order adding bemotrizinol to the sunscreen monograph (2026).