Sunrise reporter on extended leave after Naked Sundays success
Samantha Brett has taken leave from our TV screens to focus on her booming side-hustle, an item she created to help do her job safely.
Sunrise reporter Samantha Brett has announced she is taking extended leave from the popular breakfast show to focus on her side-hustle sunscreen business.
The Channel 7 journalist launched Naked Sundays, the sunscreen brand behind Australia’s first SPF50+ mist, in 2021 after identifying a need for a protective SPF product that can be applied over make-up.
After trying dozens of sunscreens but failing to find anything that didn’t mess up her professional make-up, Sam decided to take things into her own hands after seeing two colleagues have skin cancers “cut out of their faces”.
“I had been out on the road as a news reporter for over a decade and I saw two of my colleagues have to get skin cancers cut out of their faces,” she told news.com.au.
“But when I tried to find sunscreens to be able to top up throughout the day, there was nothing on the market.”
Realising it was “impossible” to find a sunscreen that was easy to apply throughout the day and didn’t give whitecast on TV or ruin make-up, Sam saw a huge gap in the market.
As an experienced journalist, Sam also saw first hand how prevalent skin cancer is in Australia. One person is diagnosed in Australia every 30 minutes, and 15-39 year olds are most at risk, Melanoma Institute Australia reports.
“This helped cement my decision that something needs to be done,” she said.
As a result, Naked Sundays was born and after launching with huge success in January, the brand has now secured a deal to be stocked in Mecca.
“We are launching into 60 Australian and New Zealand Mecca stores on October 10,” Sam said. “It’s an absolute dream to see our little creation next to all the big international names in Mecca.”
Along with the brand’s cult $39.95 SPF50+ mist, specifically designed to be worn over make-up, there are now a range of mineral and body sunscreen products in the Naked Sundays line-up.
“Our SPF Hydrating Glow Mist has always been our bestseller and we have sold out multiple times and continue to do so,” Sam said.
“But we launched our 100 per cent Mineral SPF50+ Perfecting Priming Lotion in June with vegan collagen and that now sells one every 10 seconds.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. We are getting DMs from people saying it’s changed their lives.”
“It’s an all-in-one moisturiser, primer, SPF and collagen-booster in one, so its definitely making things easier for people getting ready in the morning, but it has a blurring effect on the skin which we think is what’s made it a cult product,” she continued.
“We cannot keep it in stock.”
The brand has also earned a string of celebrity fans, including Martha Kalifatidis and Abbie Chatfield.
But while the business went from strength to strength, Sam decided to remain behind the scenes, only recently revealing on Instagram that Naked Sundays was her “baby”.
“I never wanted Naked Sundays to be about me. I wanted the products to speak for themselves, and the efficacy as well as the science behind the high-performing SPFs to be the sole focus of the brand,” she explained.
“It was very tough at first because we had everyone asking who was behind it.
“But as hundreds, and then thousands, and then tens of thousands of people fell in love with the products not only in Australia but around the world, it became very clear that this was and always will be about the products and customers, not about the founder.”
The sunscreen brand has now earned cult-status among beauty lovers, something Sam credits to the products’ simple yet high performing formulas.
“Never in our wildest dreams though did I think that my little dream of changing the habits of Millennials and people who hate sunscreen by making SPF fun, simple, multi-tasking and still high performance, would blow up like it has,” she said.
“It makes me so proud to see so many people using the power of social media to share our happy little lilac, rainbow products and to spread the word about the importance of wearing SPF every day.”
Continue the conversation @RebekahScanlan | rebekah.scanlan@news.com.au