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Launched in 2021, Vacation lept into the beauty scene with the promise to be “the world’s best-smelling sunscreen,” according to Lach Hall, one of the brand’s three co-founders. Its cheeky marketing, including ’80s Club Med-inspired ads, made it a fast favorite of consumers.
This year, on March 5, the brand built upon its Ulta Beauty distribution by entering select Target stores, with a focus on high-volume doors near college campuses. In 2023, the brand achieved 200% year-over-year sales growth, and it’s projecting comparable growth this year. By the end of April, it will have launched six new SKUs in 2024. Privately held Vacation expects to do $40 million in sales in 2024.
Below, an in-depth look at the brand’s strategies for staying fresh and innovating.
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Expanding to the bronzing category
Vacation’s M.O. has always been to make sunscreen fun, rather than scary: While avoiding references to skin cancer, the brand’s marketing aims to immerse its followers in an imaginary world inhabited by a host of characters. See: “HR Associate Neil Smithson, our resident tennis enthusiast.” At the end of February, it launched the Instant Vacation Browning Lotion, its first tinted product. The product, which also has SPF 30, is a light dihydroxyacetone-based tanning lotion that can be applied with hands rather than a mitt. It is sold out on Vacation’s e-commerce site but available at Ulta Beauty.
“We want to create sunscreen products that are fun to use, transport people to paradise, and make you look, feel and smell great in the sun,” said Hall. “People still love the look of a tan, but they don’t want the dangers that come along with that.”
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Relaunching a tanning icon
On March 28, Vacation relaunched Orange Gelée. The product was once known as Bain De Soleil Orange Gelée, a tanning gel that was at peak popularity in Vacation’s favorite decade to reference: the ’80s. When the product was discontinued in 2019, fans loudly objected — even launching a Change.org petition, which accrued over 11,000 signatures in 2020. Vacation saw it as an opportunity.
“We thought, ‘Well, someone should bring it back. And that someone should probably be us. … We are the right kind of brand, and this is the perfect product for us,'” Hall said. After acquiring the trademark to the product’s name, Vacation modernized the formula, replacing ingredients like mineral oil, petrolatum and paraffin with natural oils like jojoba, sesame, shea butter and vitamin E. The brand convened a panel of 11 longtime Orange Gelée fans to consult on the product’s recreation, from the packaging to the smell to the level of SPF — they landed at SPF 30. At orangegelee.com, which redirects to vacation.inc/orange-gelee, interested readers can learn more about the process in a series of blog posts.
From November 2023, when the brand announced the forthcoming launch of the product, to its launch of March 28, Orange Gelée accumulated a 15,000-person waitlist. The $23 product sold out within three days of launch.
Prioritizing scent
Scent is not always of central importance for brands focused on products with SPF. However, Vacation launched its $60 scent, “Vacation” by Vacation, before it launched its first sunscreen. Initially, the product was meant to help the brand build hype. However, the product sold so well that it was lifted out of “limited-edition” status to become part of the brand’s permanent collection — it is now a bestseller. A brand representative declined to share specific figures but said the category makes up a “substantial part” of the business. At the end of January, Vacation launched its second eau de toilette, “After Sun.”
“We have been so thrilled and surprised by how much people want to smell like sunscreen and swimming pools,” Hall said. “It was named one of the best one of the best products of 2021 by Vogue — it won a bunch of awards. And it became a bestseller in places like Nordstrom that are known for fragrances. … [Fragrances] will be a big part of our business and our portfolio strategy going forward.”
Leveraging TikTok
On TikTok, the brand has a much smaller following than on Instagram, where it has 122,000 followers. On TikTok, it has posted just 18 times and has 14,000 followers, but it has plans to “step up” its TikTok content, Hall said.
“We’ve got some really great [posts] coming out, but they’ll never be viral videos themselves. They’re designed to be more like an advertisement for the page. Once other people see our videos from UGC creators, then they’ll want to check out the brand and they can get an overview of it that way,” he said, regarding the TikTok strategy.
The platform has “quickly become a very important channel” for Vacation, Hall said, based on the fact that the brand sees about 5 million views on the platform per week from UGC alone. The brand has invested in gifting content creators on the platform, many of whom, in turn, create content about the products. Now, 80% of sales for the brand’s bestselling whipped cream-esque Classic Whip sunscreen come from TikTok Shop. “It’s great for all consumer brands and DTC [sales] that [TikTok Shop] has happened because we now have a competitor to Meta. … We actually have another place where we can scale advertising,” Hall said.
Spate Trend Watch: Citrus-inspired nail art is on the rise
Spring-perfect citrus nails are heating up on TikTok, pulling in over 214,000 average weekly views, an increase of 18,200% month-over-month. Videos of salon visits and step-by-step tutorials feature this trend, which is often mixed and matched with other designs — these nails, for example, were inspired by Clase Azul tequila. TikTokers are also demonstrating simple citrus nail creations, using eyeshadows to achieve specific citrus colors, and adding depth and texture to nail designs to mimic the appearance of citrus fruits.
“In the ever-evolving world of nail art, enthusiasts are hungry for new challenges to elevate their game,” said Yarden Horwitz, co-founder of Spate. “Beauty brands have a unique opportunity to collaborate with artists, … which can revolutionize the nail art scene.”
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