Soleil Toujours

Soleil Toujours is an independent sun-care brand founded by Valerie McMurray and built around what the company calls "SPF-powered skincare" — mineral sunscreens formulated to double as antioxidant skincare. The name means "sun always," and the range centers on daily sun protection made without the chemical UV filters and other ingredients the brand chooses to leave out. It remains active, running a direct-to-consumer business alongside a current product line.

McMurray came to beauty from an unrelated path: roughly eighteen years in finance, including time on a derivatives trading floor, followed by a swimwear and beach cover-up line sold at high-end resorts. That earlier venture led directly to the sunscreen brand — boutique and spa staff at luxury resorts asked her for a cleaner option to offer guests, and, unable to find a mineral formula she considered elegant enough, she set out to make her own [6].

The founding story recurs across the brand's own account and outside profiles. While pregnant with her third child, McMurray began researching sunscreen ingredients and grew concerned about the safety of many conventional UV filters. Encouraged by resort boutique owners who wanted a non-toxic product to give guests, she decided to make sun protection that worked as skincare first [6].

Sources disagree on exactly when the brand launched. An editorial founder profile says McMurray started the line "in early 2014" [7], while business databases date the company to 2015 [8]; the brand's own site does not give a founding year. McMurray leads the company as its founder.

Soleil Toujours frames itself as "sun care that cares," and describes its aim as letting people enjoy the sun "without sacrifice." The company organizes its positioning around three ideas — that its products are effective, clean, and planet-friendly. In practice that means sunscreens it says are free of oxybenzone, octinoxate and other chemical UV filters, along with parabens, phthalates, silicones, sulfates and mineral oil. Industry press has described the brand as a "pioneering line of luxury, nontoxic sun protection" [6], placing it in the prestige end of the clean-beauty movement of the 2010s.

The catalogue is built almost entirely around SPF: face and body sunscreens, tinted moisturizers, an eye cream, a setting spray, and lip and eye products, most using mineral zinc oxide. Its best-known product is the Clean Conscious Antioxidant Sunscreen Mist SPF 50, a spray the company markets as more than 70% organic and free of white cast, and which has been reviewed independently by Consumer Reports [10]. Other frequently cited items include the Daily Defense Moisturizer Mineral SPF 60 and the Face Glow Tinted Moisturizer Mineral SPF 50.

At the center of the formulas is a proprietary blend the company calls EcoSun Complex, described as a plant-based mix of antioxidants and minerals — among them astaxanthin-rich red algae, vitamin C, vitamin E, and the chamomile-derived soother bisabolol. The brand also promotes a patented form of zinc oxide that it says boosts antioxidant efficacy fivefold [3].

Environmental claims are a core part of the brand's identity. Soleil Toujours says it offsets the carbon emissions from its shipping, operations and corporate travel through the offset organization Cool Effect [4]. According to the company, its products have never contained oxybenzone or octinoxate — two filters linked to coral harm — and a portion of proceeds goes to coral-reef restoration through the GoldenEye Foundation in Jamaica, with a stated goal of planting 80,000 corals over ten years [4]. On packaging, the brand says it has replaced most petroleum-based plastic with sugarcane-based, ocean-waste or recycled alternatives.

Soleil Toujours sunscreens have appeared regularly in beauty and lifestyle press. Between 2023 and 2025, its products were named in sunscreen and SPF-skincare roundups by Vogue, Allure, the New York Post, The Zoe Report and Health, among others. Its flagship antioxidant mist has also been assessed by Consumer Reports [10], and the company reports membership in the environmental group 1% For The Planet [6].

The brand is active. It operates a direct-to-consumer website with an in-stock range and continues to be featured in sunscreen coverage, including a Vogue reef-safe roundup in mid-2025. Distribution runs through its own site and select specialty beauty retailers, alongside the resort and boutique channels where the brand began.