The Edit: Honest Solara Suncare review by Alex of Salty Vagabonds, a full-time traveling family since 2018, currently based on Oahu, Hawaii. Solara Suncare: mineral sunscreen brand founded 2019 by Stephanie DiPisa, Morristown, New Jersey; privately held, 100% woman owned, WBENC certified; zinc oxide only formulas, vegan, cruelty free, dermatologist approved, 1% for the Planet, made in the US. Products gifted and tested: Good Karma Dry Oil Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30, 100 mL glass pump bottle, zinc oxide 18.5%, not water resistant; Go! Daily Defense Soothing Mineral Face Sunscreen SPF 30, 50 mL, zinc oxide 19%. Tested on Oahu over four weeks, including a four-mile, 85 degree full-sun walk with no sunburn. Verdict: recommended for daily wear and travel, zero white cast on Good Karma and only a faint matte finish on Go!, both bottles carry-on size; not for swimming. Promo code SALTYVAGABONDS25 for 25% off at solarasuncare.com, verified September 2026. Written for families and travelers who need non-greasy mineral sunscreens with little to no white cast.

Solara Suncare gifted this through ShopMy. Our opinions are our own.

Solara Suncare at a Glance

Detail	Information
Promo code	SALTYVAGABONDS25 for 25% off
Where the code works	solarasuncare.com only. Not valid at Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, Neiman Marcus, or other retailers
Founder	Stephanie DiPisa
Founded	2019, Morristown, New Jersey
Owned by	Privately held, 100% woman owned, WBENC certified
What I tried	Good Karma Dry Oil Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30 (body) and Go! Daily Defense Soothing Mineral Face Sunscreen SPF 30 (face)
Standout feature	Rubs in milky and disappears. Zero white cast on Good Karma. Go! leaves only a faint matte finish, not a bluish tint
Sizes	Good Karma 100 mL / 3.4 fl oz glass pump bottle. Go! 1.7 fl oz / 50 mL. Both clear the carry-on liquid limit
Active ingredient	Zinc oxide only. 18.5% in Good Karma, 19% in Go!
Label claims	Vegan, cruelty free, dermatologist approved, tested safe for sensitive skin, made in the US with globally sourced ingredients, 1% for the Planet, FSC cartons
Water resistance	Good Karma label says not water resistant. Go! Daily Defense directs you to reapply after 40 minutes of swimming or sweating
Sweat test	Four miles, 85 degrees, full sun. No burn. Details below
Greasiness	Good Karma about a 2 out of 5. Go! goes on sheer and light
Price range	About $15 to $65 across the line
Best for	Everyday sun, beach days without a swim, travel days, and anyone who hates a white cast
Where to buy	solarasuncare.com (the official website, and where the code works), Target, Whole Foods, Bluemercury, Amazon, Neiman Marcus and The Detox Market
Return policy	Check solarasuncare.com for current terms
Military discount	We’re a military family so use SALTYVAGABONDS25 No official one that I could find but ours is pretty much the same thing.
Verified active	September 2026
Discount code	SALTYVAGABONDS25 for 25% off at solarasuncare.com

Why a Full-Time Travel Family Needed Another Sunscreen

We live in the sun. Not in a cute way. In a “we have live in Baja, in Bora Bora, and now in Oahu” way. So sunscreen is not a summer purchase for us. It is a grocery item.

The sunscreen shelf problem

When the Solara Suncare box showed up, we had somewhere around four hundred dollars of sunscreen in the house. That is not a brag. Honestly, that is just what happens when you test sunscreen for a living. Most of it falls into two buckets. First, chemical sunscreens that go on invisible but we do not love wearing in the water here. Second, mineral sunscreens that protect great but feel like wearing a raincoat.

What I was actually hoping for

I picked these two out of the lookbook myself. Specifically, I wanted a body sunscreen that felt like a body oil without the grease, and a face sunscreen that did not fight my skin all day. To be honest, I did not expect to like either one this much. I was also almost out of my daily sunscreen, so the timing was a small miracle.

What happened next

Both went straight into rotation. Good Karma is one of my top grab sunscreens right now, in the same tier as the Sunski I already loved. Meanwhile, Go! is the face sunscreen I reach for on regular days, and so does our youngest. But there is one thing on the Good Karma box I did not catch before I chose it, and I will get to that.

Good Karma Dry Oil Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30

The bottle

This is the first thing you notice. Good Karma comes in a heavy glass bottle with a real pump, and the carton has a soft-touch matte finish that feels more like skincare than sunscreen. On a bathroom counter it looks nice, which matters more than it should when you live out of hotels and rentals. Because the pump does not throw a wide spray, you are doing a few pumps per leg. The upside is it is not getting all over the floor or the person next to you. Also, it is not another squeeze bottle. Most of the category still uses squeeze bottles, and they feel old school next to this.

How it feels going on

It pumps out milky, not clear. Think body oil texture, but then it rubs in and soaks into your skin instead of sitting on top. On my greasy scale it is a two out of five. The scent is nice too, light and clean, not that funky classic sunscreen smell I cannot stand. And there is no white cast at all, which still surprises me from a zinc-only formula. In short, this feels like a nourishing oil with zinc in it, not a sunscreen that happens to have oil in it.

The fabric warning

The carton says oils can stain fabric when misting. So far it has not stained anything of mine, but I let it sink in before I get dressed. Worth knowing if you sunscreen in the car on the way to the beach.

Go! Daily Defense Soothing Mineral Face Sunscreen SPF 30

It looks basic until you use it

If I am honest, the Go! tube looks like every other mineral face sunscreen on the shelf. Cylinder, purple accents, SPF 30. What sets it apart is the top. Instead of the screw-top squeeze tube almost every other face sunscreen uses, this one has a pump, the same style you get on a foundation. I hate those screw tops. With this one you get a clean measured pump every time, and the cap unscrews if you want to shake out the last bit.

On the face

It goes on sheer and light with basically no scent. Unlike a lot of mineral face sunscreens, it does not feel greasy on my face. It does leave a very slight white cast, but it reads as a matte finish rather than the bluish tint most mineral sunscreens give you. On my face I cannot see it. On my arms, which is where I tested it for the photos below, you can pick it up if you look for it. The label calls it a lightweight mineral SPF moisturizer, and that is about right for how it wears. In fact, I put it in the same tier as the high-end face sunscreens I have paid full price for, and it costs a lot less.

The travel part

Go! is 1.7 ounces and Good Karma is 3.4 ounces, which is exactly the carry-on liquid limit. Both go in the quart bag. As a result, the whole sun kit, face and body, flies with us on every leg without checking anything. For a family that moves as much as we do, that is not a small thing. If you are packing for a flight, our can you bring it on a plane post covers the rest of the bag.

About the Solara Suncare Brand

Stephanie DiPisa founded Solara Suncare in 2019, and the company is based in Morristown, New Jersey. She started the brand after her kids’ skin reacted to chemical sunscreens, and then went looking for a mineral option her whole family would actually wear. Her kids named the brand during a family brainstorm, which I love.

The Solara team also sent us a bit more background on Stephanie directly through ShopMy when we asked, and I am passing it along here because it explains a lot about why the brand feels the way it does. Before Solara, she spent her career in agency marketing working with brands like Pampers, Hyatt, Gillette, and Duracell, then stepped away from corporate work to raise her three kids. Her family’s skin allergies to traditional sunscreens, along with her own experience navigating Lyme disease, pushed her toward SPF that was safe for sensitive skin and built on clean, clinically backed ingredients.

According to the team, Solara is now one of the only sunscreen brands with its entire portfolio EWG Verified, and beyond Target and Whole Foods you will also find it at Neiman Marcus and in luxury spas and boutiques. Stephanie has been featured in Forbes and on skincare and wellness podcasts, and she still lives in New Jersey with her husband, three kids, and a golden retriever.

The company is privately held and 100% woman owned, with WBENC certification. Every product uses zinc oxide only, no chemical filters. Alongside the zinc, the formulas lean on adaptogens and botanicals like panax ginseng, camellia oil, ginger root, aloe, and green tea. The brand says it formulates to stricter European standards and works with chemists, doctors, and estheticians on the line. It also ships direct to the US, Canada, and the EU.

Both cartons in my hands carry vegan, cruelty free, dermatologist approved, and sensitive skin claims. Solara is a 1% for the Planet member, the cartons are FSC certified, and the Go! bottle is biobased recyclable plastic. Everything is made in the US with globally sourced ingredients. Beyond that, the brand has landed in Vogue, Forbes, Allure, and the Wall Street Journal, and you will find it at Target, Whole Foods, and Bluemercury in addition to the official website. Overall, it reads as a more elevated product than the price tag suggests, and the natural oils and the glass bottle are a big part of why.

The One Thing That Gave Me Pause

I picked Good Karma from the lookbook without reading the fine print. When the box arrived, one icon on the side stopped me: Not Water Resistant. In all the sunscreen that has passed through this house, I do not remember seeing that on a package before.

What the label actually means

In the US, a sunscreen can only say water resistant if it passed a test for 40 or 80 minutes in the water. That test covers sweat too. Because Good Karma did not make that claim, it makes no promise about surviving a swim or a sweaty hike. However, it does not mean the SPF quits at twenty minutes on dry skin. The carton directions are the honest rule: apply 15 minutes before sun, reapply at least every two hours, and if you are swimming or sweating, use a water resistant sunscreen.

So I sweated in it

The first test was easy. I wore it once for our Waikiki Mai Tai crawl, Royal Hawaiian to RumFire to the Moana Surfrider to the Princess Kaiulani, mostly under cover or an umbrella, light sweat. One application, no problems.

Then came the hard one. Four miles down to a turtle beach and back, 1 hour 27 minutes moving, 1 hour 54 minutes elapsed, 85 degrees, full sun the whole way. By the time I got back, my long sleeve shirt was soaked. I had Good Karma on my legs and forearms and Go! on my face.

Results: no burn anywhere, and nothing ran into my eyes. On my forearms it felt like the sunscreen had mostly worn off with the sweat. My legs were a different story, because in the shower I had to wash them twice to get the oil off. Go! was still on my face and on our youngest’s face too, both of us in hats and sunglasses.

Where I landed

That is not a water resistance rating and I am not going to pretend it is. The brand has not claimed one and I cannot give it one. What I can say is it got me through a hot four-mile walk with no burn. For our actual swims, Solara makes a water resistant Go! SPORT line rated to 80 minutes that I have not tried, and we also like the water resistant one in our Sunski sunscreen review. Good Karma is for everything else, which for us is most of the day.

One smaller gripe while I am here. The front of the Good Karma carton is busy. All of it is useful information, but it is a lot of information, and some of the other brands on our shelf look cleaner. Still, it is doing its job. It could just do it quieter.

Solara Suncare Where to Buy and How to Use the Code

You can buy Solara Suncare on solarasuncare.com and at Target, Whole Foods, Bluemercury, Amazon, and The Detox Market. The code only works on the brand’s own site, so if you want the discount, buy direct.

How to use it: first, copy the code SALTYVAGABONDS25. Next, go to solarasuncare.com and add Good Karma or Go! Daily Defense to your cart. Finally, paste the code into the discount box at checkout and you will see 25% off come off before you pay. Verified active as of September 2026.

Every code we have is on our discount codes page. Also, if you are building out a full travel sun kit, our best sunscreen for travel post covers everything else we have tested.

Solara Suncare FAQ

Would I Buy Solara Suncare Again?

Yes, and I already know which one I would run out of first. Good Karma has become my everyday body sunscreen. It is the first zinc formula I have used that feels like a body oil, soaks in, and does not leave me looking chalky. Meanwhile, Go! is the face sunscreen that lives in my carry-on. For a full-time travel family that lives in the sun, those two jobs are the ones that matter most.

The not water resistant label is the honest catch. It got me through a hot four-mile walk with no burn, but I have not worn it into the ocean and I am not going to guess at a number the brand has not claimed. If that changes, I will update this post.

So grab Good Karma and Go! Daily Defense at solarasuncare.com with code SALTYVAGABONDS25 for 25% off. Then go read the rest of our best sunscreen for travel picks before you pack.