Bondi Sands founder Blair James has just launched a skincare range under the brand. Photos / Supplied
Bondi Sands founder Blair James has just launched a skincare range under the brand. Photos / Supplied
Bondi Sands co-founder Blair James was just 25 when he started his own tanning salon in Melbourne. Now, nearly 10 years after he first created his iconic self-tan brand, it's a household name not just in Australia and New Zealand but around the world.
From supermarket shelves to social media, Bondi Sands took the tanning world by storm - and now the brand has ventured into the competitive world of skincare.
Bondi Sands co-founder Blair James still remembers the thrill of seeing his products first hit shelves in Aussie pharmacy Priceline in 2012.
"We got our first 30cm of shelf space and I still remember that very, very vividly," he tells the Herald. "I remember walking out of that Priceline meeting and feeling like my life had changed."
Now Bondi Sand supplies self-tanning products to nearly 35,000 stores all over the world.
James' story is an inspiring one - he overcame financial difficulties and the loss of his parents at the young age of 23 to establish his own business at 25, opening a tanning salon in Melbourne in 2006.
Now 41, James's dream as a kid was to become either a basketball player for the NBA or a Formula One race car driver - so how did he end up in the world of beauty?
James says it was his "obsession with brands" as a kid that inspired him to eventually start his own business.
"I always saw myself running a business or having my own brand, and my plan was to open a fashion store. I remember having a discussion with my brother at the time, and he said, why don't you look at something like a spray tan salon? Once it's set up it doesn't need to be reinvented every single year in terms of new styles and new fashions," he says.
Seven years of running a tanning salon turned out to be the best market research he could have done.
"We were doing close to 150 spray tans in a day at the time," he recalls.
"When we used to get that busy, I would recommend to the people that we couldn't fit in that they go and buy a substandard product. And the feedback was always, the product doesn't last long enough or it smells bad, or the colour wasn't great.
"So we started thinking, what's so different about salon-quality spray tans and self-tanning products? And we started making our own spray solution and using that in the salon. And then once we got a colour we were happy with, we saw an opportunity to take a salon-quality product to the market."
It turns out social media had a huge part to play. In the brand's early days, social media was just starting to take off - and James was quick to take advantage of it.
"We were quick to move across to using influencers to talk about our brand. And I think that allowed us to get traction very early on as a young brand with very little marketing spend, and looking for opportunities to reach large audiences. That social media reach was something that did allow us to get that traction. And it's still a huge part of our marketing today."
Since then, tanning is yet to go out of style - although the too-orange spray tans of the noughties are long gone, he says.
"There's definitely a trend towards more of a natural glow type of products that are actually more buildable. Gradual tanning products are great, you can use them every day. They're not messy, and you can just build a subtle colour. And then you're also seeing a bit of a trend towards people using tanning products to just blend out any inconsistencies."
Particularly in Australia and New Zealand, consumers are looking for a sun-kissed glow without damaging their skin.
"I think that's been that was always a big driver for the brand, particularly in Australia and in New Zealand. Everyone's very much aware of how harsh the UV light is both New Zealand and Australia. That message is completely different either in the US and the UK.
"But I think that sun safety message in Australia and New Zealand is definitely driving the growth of self tan."
Blair James opened his own tanning salon at the age of 25. Photo / Supplied
And the brand's gender-neutral approach to tanning means that more males are picking up the self-tanning lotion, he says.
"We like that positioning. We were the first to launch a men's tanning product back in 2017, which smelled a bit like an aftershave product, it was a lighter, dry product that didn't leave that little sheen on the skin, which men generally don't really want.
"Men are definitely moving into more of the tanning products. I think men are a little bit lazy when it comes to looking at the skin and things like that," he jokes.
"So a gradual, easy to apply, don't-worry-about-it tan - that's still going to look good. I think that's a trend that will continue."
He hopes Bondi's new skincare range, launching today, will hold the same universal appeal.
Bondi's venture into skincare has been a long time in the making - it's taken around 18 months to reach the market. His aim was to create a high-quality range at an accessible price point as well as including active ingredients - something that more and more consumers are looking for these days.
"It was important to make sure we had science-backed ingredients that are going to give you an actual result from using them. We've also got some great Australian botanicals in there as well."
Skincare is a competitive market, so James wanted to ensure the range was tried and true before going on the shelf. He was nervous to pitch a skincare range to retailers at first, he admits.
"It was kind of like, 'Well, you're a self-tanning guy, what do you know about skincare?' And I thought, hang on - we are a skincare brand, we've been doing skincare since the beginning really. We did self tan so you don't need to lay in the sun. We do suncare products as well, we've been doing that for a long period of time.
"We're no longer just a self-tanning brand, we have to start representing ourselves as a skincare brand, a skin health brand."
His advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs is simple: find your passion and do your research.
"Find something that you are really passionate about. It sounds like a really, really basic one. But you know, to find something that motivates you on a daily basis is a hard thing. Motivation for money really wears off pretty quickly," he acknowledges.
"Once you find that thing that you really enjoy, research it day in day out, understand it inside and out, understand who your consumer is, where you want to sell it - you can never know too much about your category."
