6 hours Ago By Gloria Tso
Co-founder Ava Chandler-Matthews tells Style about how the Australian brand has combined skincare and sun protection, eschewing the heavy tone of most sunscreens in favour of more inviting textures Sunscreen has long been considered an afterthought when it comes to morning skincare routines . Ava Chandler-Matthews, who launched Australian beauty brand Ultra Violette with her business partner Bec Jefferd back in 2019, is on a mission to change that. Their bestselling “skinscreen” products – which purport to be a moisturiser, make-up primer and SPF product all in one – have proven to be a hit worldwide, making waves all the way from the sunny shores of their home country to the United States, where the brand recently launched in partnership with beauty retailer Sephora.
Chandler-Matthews tells Style more about this exciting next step into Ultra Violette’s bright future and why no one does SPF products quite like the Australians. Advertisement What’s so significant about expanding to the US market and what are your goals for this expansion? How does it feel to accomplish this milestone with Sephora? {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Bec Jefferd (left) and Ava Chandler-Matthews want to take the “grudge step” out of applying sunscreen by putting the focus on prestige skincare and quality products.
Photo: Handout","url":"https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2025/04/24/0a465312-b848-4153-822c-0063bdc89239_3fefb016.
jpg"} Bec Jefferd (left) and Ava Chandler-Matthews want to take the “grudge step” out of applying sunscreen by putting the focus on prestige skincare and quality products. Photo: Handout It means a lot! We launched the brand to take the highest common denominator approach to formulating SPF. It’s very complex because every region has different regulatory environments.
We made a lot of assumptions when we were thinking about the US – obviously, it’s the world’s biggest beauty market. If you want to be considered a truly global brand in this space, you have to be in the US. You can’t avoid it.
At one point a couple of years ago, we were in the process of raising money and potential investors kept asking about our plans. We thought maybe we should just test what the US formulation can look like, because we didn’t want to dumb down our range for the sake of a market that hasn’t had any SPF innovation approved in over 25 years. In that process, we found out that the FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] was going to approve the first new UV filter in over 25 years in early 2026.
So we’ve got a year to start building the brand – it’s obviously not an overnight thing – and then we can come in with formulations that are consistent with the rest of the world, or better textures because of that new filter. You can’t go into a market like the US without a lot of preparation. We are far away and just because we’ve got successful international markets, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s going to translate.
You don’t get that many chances to do the US so you have to get it right. Despite the fact that we were familiar with working with Sephora in other parts of the world, it in no way mirrored what it was like to work with the US team. They’re really hands-on, really committed.
We had to do a bit of boot camp because everything is different, from the online pages [to] the testing that’s required in terms of the clinical claims that the consumer likes to see. The US is also a massive market with different consumer needs and climates, for that matter. How did that play a role in your plans for the US?.
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