There's a particular kind of morning that most Australian parents know well.

It's 8:14am. School bags are half-packed. One child can't find their hat. Another is convinced they already put sunscreen on (they haven't). You have twelve minutes before the bell, and the sunscreen pump has decided today is the day it produces nothing but air.

You skip it. You'll do it properly on the weekend.

It's a completely understandable call, and it's also, across millions of households every weekday morning, how Australian children end up at school without adequate sun protection. Not because parents don't care. Because the product makes it harder than it needs to be.

That's the gap that Caroline and Kelly - two Sydney-siders and the founders of Solmates Australia - set out to close. Not with a new sunscreen formula, or a marketing campaign about better habits. Just a smarter way to apply the sunscreen you already own.

The result is a compact refillable roll-on applicator that has quietly become a daily staple for thousands of Australian families. Here's what a day with a Solmates actually looks like.

"Caroline & Kelly began Solmates Australia because they wanted a way to use less plastic in a way that would still easily fit into their daily lives."

The School Run (7:45am)

The single best feature of a roll-on applicator on a school morning is that it doesn't require clean hands, a surface, or more than thirty seconds.

You pull the Solmates from the hook by the door - or the side pocket of the school bag, or the basket on the kitchen bench - take the cap off, and roll. Face, neck, arms. Done. No pump that needs holding upright. No lid that's landed behind the bin. No residue on your hands before you touch your phone, the car keys, or your coffee.

For kids, the roll-on format removes the main resistance point: the feeling of cold, gloopy lotion being slapped onto their face by a parent in a hurry. A roller is gentler, more predictable, and, if we're honest, more interesting and way more fun.

"Perfect for school mornings! This sunscreen applicator works a treat making getting sunscreen applied on a school morning a lot easier and quicker." — Bridget A., Solmates customer

The 50ml Solmates applicator holds enough sunscreen for roughly a week of daily school-run applications for a child, depending on coverage. Fill it from a bulk pump bottle at home and the Solmates goes in the bag, every day, without fuss.

 The Commute (8:30am)

This one surprises a lot of people.

Most Australians don't think of their commute as a UV exposure event. But side windows in Australian cars provide significantly less UV protection than the laminated front windscreen - with research showing that between 4% and 56% of UVA radiation can pass through untreated side glass.

For anyone who drives regularly, applying sunscreen to the right side of the face, neck and arm before morning drives is a simple, effective habit. A Solmates applicator or pot kept in the centre console or door pocket makes this a twenty-second job at the traffic lights. Or, even better, before you even pull out of the driveway.

It's also ideal for public transport commuters: a 50ml applicator or 25ml pot slips easily into a work bag, jacket pocket, or tote, and doesn't create the social awkwardness of wrestling with a full-size pump bottle on a crowded train.

The Desk Drawer (Reapplication at Lunch)

Cancer Council Australia recommends reapplying sunscreen every two hours when outdoors. For people who work in offices, this is mostly not relevant - but 'mostly' is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

If you eat lunch outside. If your office has large windows. If you walk between buildings. If you nip out to pick up a coffee and end up standing in the sun for ten minutes while a colleague catches you up on something. These are the moments where a desk-drawer Solmates earns its keep.

Because it's compact, a Solmates sits unobtrusively in a drawer, on a desk corner, or in a pencil cup without taking up meaningful space. No sunscreen smell drifting through an open-plan office. No mess. Just a quick roll or dab before you head out, and back to your desk in ninety seconds.

The 50ml Solmates is 7cm tall and 5.5cm wide — smaller than most hand cream tubes. It fits in a pencil cup, a jacket pocket, a nappy bag, a glove box, or a desk drawer without displacing anything else.

Weekend Sport (Saturday Morning, Sidelines)

If you have school-age children, you already know that Saturday morning sport is one of the most sustained UV exposure events in a suburban Australian family's week. An hour or two on the sidelines of a football oval, cricket ground, or athletics track, usually between 9am and noon - right in the window when UV levels in Australia are climbing toward their daily peak.

The 100ml Solmates applicator - the bigger sibling to the original 50ml - was made for exactly this scenario. It's large enough to serve a family of four across a full morning of outdoor sport, still compact enough to drop in a sports bag or hang from a tote handle using the included tether, and the roll-on format means you can easily pass it around the family.

It works equally well for the adults doing the sport. Runners, cyclists, golfers, tennis players - anyone who spends concentrated time outdoors during UV hours - find the roll-on format particularly practical for arms, back of neck, and ears, where coverage from conventional pump bottles tends to be inconsistent.

One regular Solmates customer put it simply:

"I use this for golfing all the time, refilling is easy and I bought half a dozen for my family."

The Beach (Obviously)

The original use case, and still the one the Solmates applicators does best.

The problem with sunscreen at the beach has always been the same: the moment sunscreen meets sandy hands, you either waste product applying it awkwardly, or you give up and skip a spot. The roll-on format sidesteps this completely. 

The tether (a small loop attached to the applicator) means your Solmates can hang off a bag handle, a pram, a beach chair, or a beach bag strap. It doesn't end up buried at the bottom where sunscreen goes to be forgotten. It stays visible, accessible, and within reach of children who've been trained to top up when they come out of the water.

And filling it with reef-safe zinc lotion before a beach day near the Great Barrier Reef or any protected marine environment means you're pairing sun protection with ocean protection - an easy double win.

Holidays and Travel

Australian airport security allows liquids containers up to 100ml in carry-on luggage — which means a Solmates applicator or pot (available in 25ml, 50ml and 100ml) passes through security without going in your checked bag.

For family travel, the implications are significant. Rather than buying a new, often inferior and overpriced sunscreen at your destination, or packing multiple full-size bottles that eat into your luggage allowance, you pack one or two Solmates and a bulk SPF for refilling. The rolling format is also less likely to leak at altitude than a pump or flip-cap bottle - several Solmates travellers specifically mention no-leak performance as a standout feature.

For international travel having a compact, reliable sunscreen applicator that fits in a day bag without bulk is the kind of practical convenience that, once experienced, makes packing any other way feel like a step backwards.

The Quiet Moments in Between

Not every Solmates story is a big outdoor adventure. Some of the most appreciated uses are the quiet, mundane, everyday ones.

 🧡 The grandmother who has always found conventional sunscreen too messy to apply to her hands and arms - the roll-on makes it independent and dignified.

 🧡  The teenager who finally started reapplying because having their own Solmates felt different from the family pump on the bathroom shelf.

 🧡 The nurse who keeps a Solmates applicator in her locker and does a quick roll on the back of her neck before an outdoor break, because she spent years forgetting a product that wasn't there.

 🧡  The new parent who hangs the Solmates applicator from the pram handle so that sunscreen is the one thing they don't have to remember to pack separately.

These aren't marketing stories. They're the reasons Caroline and Kelly built the product in the first place - and they're why the Solmates community has grown the way it has. Not because of a particular campaign or a viral moment, but because the product solves a real, daily problem in a way that becomes a habit almost immediately.

"The Solmates is the perfect small compact size for everyone in the family to bring with them in handbags, school bags, beach bags etc. No more excuses for not bringing sunscreen."

Finding Your Solmates

The Solmates range is designed to match the scale of what you're doing:

The 25ml Pot - the newest addition to the family, and the most versatile. Fill it with sunscreen lotion, zinc, a thick cream, or a gel — the wide-mouth opening handles any consistency a roll-on bottle can't. Or don't fill it with sunscreen at all: it's equally at home carrying vitamins, snacks for little ones, or a few pieces of jewellery you don't want rattling loose in a beach bag. One small pot, endless uses.

The 50ml Applicator - the everyday companion. School bags, handbags, work bags, car glove boxes. Holds one week or so of daily facial and neck applications. This is the one that lives in your life permanently.

The 100ml Applicator - for family adventures, beach days, camping, and weekend sport. Enough product to cover a family of four for a full outdoor day without needing a refill mid-activity.

All sizes come in a range of colours made from certified recycled plastic -  meaning the plastic used in each bottle is material that was recovered from waterways or coastlines before it could reach the ocean. Every Solmates varies slightly in colour and finish because of the recycled source material, which means no two are quite identical.

The applicators and pots are refillable indefinitely, and when they eventually reach end of life, Solmates runs a Takeback Program so they can be properly recycled — closing the loop on what is already a low-waste product.

One Small Thing That Changes Your Whole Day

There's a version of sun protection that's burdensome: the large bottle you have to remember, the sticky hands, the missing cap, the child who wriggles away. Most of us have lived inside that version, and most of us have taken shortcuts because of it.

And there's another version - where the sunscreen is already in the bag, the application takes twenty seconds, and the habit builds itself because the product doesn't fight you.

That's what a Solmates is. Not a revolution. Just a small, well-designed thing that removes the friction from something you know you should be doing every day.

From the 7:45am school run to the 4pm beach walk, from the office desk drawer to the nappy bag on the pram - it's the one that goes everywhere, stays out of the way, and makes the right choice the easy one.

The Solmates Refillables Range is available in 25ml, 50ml and 100ml, in a range of colours made from certified recycled plastic. Designed and made in Australia.