Slip, Slop, Slap: How Solstråle Is Elevating Sun Safety
By Charlotte Westaway and Lily Ivey
How could we help individuals safeguard their scalps from harmful sun exposure? Our answer was Solstråle.
It was mid-February 2024, and Australia was amid a blistering heatwave. Ironically, we decided to spend the day outside at a music festival, unable to hide from the blazing sun above. Cognizant of the fact that melanomas are caused by overexposure to UV radiation, particularly from the sun, we applied sunscreen to the obvious areas – our faces and bodies. Coming home, we quickly realised that we had overlooked the area most regularly exposed to sunlight – our hair part. They were burnt, blistering, and extremely painful. Yet, this was not the first time our scalps had been badly scorched. We would often experience such pain after playing sports outdoors or swimming at the beach, both situations in which hats are generally forgone.
Solstråle - meaning ‘ray of sunlight’ - is a compact sunscreen that can be directly applied to the scalp, specifically, the exposed hair part. Solstråle is also water-resistant, and, in line with our sustainability objectives, refillable. After conducting market and consumer research and listening to the 2024 Australians of the Year, Professor Georgina Long AO and Professor Richard Scolyer AO, it became imperative that Solstråle achieved the highest possible SPF rating of 50+. For us, enhancing sun safety practices and ensuring their position at the forefront of national conversation is of paramount importance, as indeed, Australia has the highest melanoma rates in the world.
Our genuine passion for Solstråle was the catalyst for entering the 2024 UniMelb Startup Pitch Competition. It seemed like the ideal platform to assess the viability of our idea and gain valuable feedback, which was critical if we wanted to see Solstråle on store shelves in Australia.
Throughout the competition, we were provided with tremendous support, particularly by way of one-on-one mentoring sessions, from which we learnt how to improve our pitch and gained insights from industry professionals. We also attended multiple in-person workshops, which enabled us to develop a clear understanding of what is needed for a start-up to succeed.
Such support provided by the University, combined with our market knowledge of skincare and suncare products, allowed us to hone our idea into one we believed in and are truly proud of. Our complementary skillsets in Commerce and Arts, resulted in a symbiotic working relationship, allowing us to creatively and strategically navigate the requirements of the competition, and ultimately place first.
Winning the UniMelb StartUp Pitch Competition was an incredibly exciting and rewarding accomplishment. We were grateful to receive $6,500 and a place in the Velocity Pre-Accelerator Melbourne Accelerator Program at the Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre. We look forward to participating and working amongst other entrepreneurial minds, as the opportunity will provide us with the knowledge needed to turn our ideas for Solstråle into a reality. We also believe that such knowledge will aid us in our future careers, whether they involve entrepreneurship or not.
We are incredibly grateful to have received immense support from the University of Melbourne, our mentors, the judges, and competition sponsors: CloudTech; Telstra; Melbourne Accelerator Program; and Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship. We are also grateful for our family and friends’ unwavering support throughout our journey.
Creating Solstråle has been extraordinarily fulfilling. Despite challenges, the competition has allowed us to develop resilience and adaptability, hone our critical thinking skills, and improve our communication skills. These are skills which serve to have a wider impact on our lives. We would highly recommend the UniMelb StartUp Pitch Competition to other students, even if, like us, they have no prior experience with entrepreneurship and the start-up business world.
We look forward to bringing Solstråle to life, and with it, contributing to a better culture of sun safety.
“We are proud to partner with such iconic Australian companies as the University of Melbourne, Telstra, and the Melbourne Accelerator Program to support and promote innovation. These skills are critical for building a strong path to market for young entrepreneurs - it allows them to get valuable insight into startup incubation, how to successfully pitch, and how to speak to potential investors. These skills are critical and cannot be taught, only experienced. The competition was incredibly fierce - Congratulations to the winners; Solstråle." – CloudTech Group, 2024 Competition Sponsor