Makeup artist Yacine Diallo used to live in fear of airport baggage scales. The Paris-based makeup artist fell in love with Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen SPF 40 when she lived in America, so much so that she’d bring tubes and tubes of it back with her to France anytime she visited the States. It’s the opposite of the story we usually hear: Americans smuggling superior sunscreens home from trips to Paris or Rome. But despite trying every European formula under the sun (pun intended), the makeup artist swears she couldn’t find an SPF that could compete with Supergoop!’s non-greasy, totally invisible formula, she tells me over dinner in Paris. (It’s not a Best of Beauty winner for nothing.)
We are gathered to celebrate the launch of Supergoop! in the European Union — and as a byproduct, Diallo suddenly having a whole lot more room for (non-beauty) souvenirs in her suitcase. As of this month, the brand has rolled out in more than 650 Sephora stores across 16 international markets including France, Italy, Denmark, Romania, and Portugal.
For Holly Thaggard, who founded Supergoop! in 2007, it’s a full-circle moment. Back in 2011, when the brand launched at Sephora in the United States, sunscreen was “such a sleepy category,” says Thaggard. She woke it up by creating novel ways to apply it, like a quick-to-absorb oil. “If there weren’t beautiful, luxurious ways to apply and to reapply sunscreen and easily incorporate it into your routine, everybody would still be putting it in a drawer,” Thaggard tells me.
