Hawaiian Tropic

Hawaiian Tropic is an American sun-care brand founded by Ron Rice in 1969 [7]. Built around coconut-scented suntan lotion and a tropical, beach-leisure image, it grew into one of the largest sun-care names in the United States before passing through a series of corporate owners. Since 2007 it has been owned by larger consumer-goods groups, and today it is part of Edgewell Personal Care, where it sits alongside the rival sun-care brand Banana Boat.

The brand remains commercially active under Edgewell, with a current US website and distribution through major retailers. Its ownership status, rather than any pause in trading, is the main thing that distinguishes its corporate history from its early independence.

The company traces its start to Daytona Beach, Florida, where Ron Rice worked as a lifeguard and had previously taught chemistry. By his own and later accounts, the idea came while he sat in his lifeguard stand and watched a beachgoer apply Coppertone. He began the business in 1969 with a US$500 loan from his father [8].

The founding is the subject of one of the brand's most-repeated anecdotes: Rice is said to have mixed the first batch of his coconut-scented suntan lotion in a trash can, stirring it with a broom handle, then hired two young helpers to bottle it [8]. According to the Cosmetics Business trade obituary, he later had the bin silver-plated.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the brand became closely tied to American beach and tanning culture. Much of its marketing ran through the Miss Hawaiian Tropic International pageant, a swimsuit competition that selected spokesmodels for advertising campaigns; according to Wikipedia it ran from at least 1984 to 2010, and winners went on to serve as brand ambassadors [7].

The business expanded to a substantial scale. Wikipedia describes it as having become "the largest private manufacturer of sun care products in the United States" [7], and a Cosmetics Business obituary of Rice noted that the brand was "at one point the second largest sun care business in the world" [8]. The US pageants ended in late 2008, with Swimsuit USA cited as the official successor [7].

Hawaiian Tropic left family ownership in 2007, when Playtex Products, Inc. acquired the brand. Wikipedia records the acquisition as taking place in May 2007 [7]; the Cosmetics Business obituary puts the price at US$83 million [8]. Playtex was subsequently purchased by Energizer Holdings in a deal valued at about US$1.9 billion, and Hawaiian Tropic moved to Edgewell Personal Care when that company was spun off from Energizer [7].

Edgewell lists Hawaiian Tropic among its trademarks alongside brands such as Schick, Wilkinson Sword, Personna, Banana Boat, Bulldog and Cremo. Its closest sibling within the group is Banana Boat, a competing sun-care line now under the same owner.

Hawaiian Tropic frames sun protection as a sensorial, holiday-flavoured experience rather than a purely clinical one. The company says it formulates products to "make skin look and feel luminous while keeping it protected and smelling irresistible," and its stated mission centres on combining protection with an indulgent, scented finish. The brand's primary tagline is "touch yourself and glow," and its educational hub uses the line "protection that keeps you glowing."

That tropical identity carries through to its ingredient story. The brand cites coconut along with "island-inspired botanicals" such as papaya, mango, passion fruit, plumeria, guava and aloe. The label is sold through mass-market retailers including Target, Walmart and Amazon, placing it in the drugstore price tier.

The brand's defining product is the original coconut-scented suntan lotion that started the company. Its range covers sunscreen lotions, daily moisturisers with SPF and after-sun care; one named after-sun product is the Lime Coolada After Sun Moisturizer, which the brand associates with aloe vera. Hawaiian Tropic states that its sunscreens offer "broad spectrum UVA and UVB protection," with SPF 30 and SPF 50 among the levels discussed in its consumer guidance.

The brand publishes educational material on sun safety rather than detailing proprietary technologies; no specific patented formulation or SPF system is named in its public materials. Its parent, Edgewell, operates a corporate sustainability framework called "Sustainable Care 2030," which addresses greenhouse-gas emissions, energy, waste and water use across operations and supply chain.

Hawaiian Tropic has been named in legal action over environmental marketing, in cases that also covered its sibling brand Banana Boat. In 2022 the District Attorney of Santa Clara County, California, sued Edgewell over "reef friendly" and "reef safe" advertising claims, alleging the sunscreens contained reef-harmful chemicals without scientific support; the action was described as the first of its kind brought against a major sunscreen manufacturer [11].

In 2025 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission began Federal Court proceedings against Edgewell, filed on 1 July, alleging greenwashing in "reef friendly" claims made on more than 90 Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat sunscreen products between August 2020 and December 2024 [9]. The regulator pointed to ingredients including octocrylene, homosalate, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor and avobenzone, and noted that the claims had been dropped in the US around 2020 but continued in Australia until December 2024 [9].

Founder Ron Rice died in 2022 at the age of 81. The Washington Post marked his death with an obituary that referred to him as the "Suntan King" [10], and Cosmetics Business covered his death in a trade obituary that recounted the brand's founding and growth [8].

Hawaiian Tropic is an acquired brand, owned and operated by Edgewell Personal Care; it is not independent. It remains commercially active: its US website carries a current copyright notice, and its products are distributed through retailers including Target, Walmart and Amazon. After being founded in 1969, the brand has been in operation for more than 50 years, the latter part of that span under successive corporate parents.