Solar Buddies Review: A Great Child-friendly Sunscreen Applicator

What’s the one thing that puts you off going to the beach for a day with the kids? Wanna know what it is for me? Applying sun cream and then trying to wipe your hands in sandy towels. But I think I’ve finally found the answer with an awesome child friendly sunscreen applicator in the form of Solar Buddies. This might just be the reason we spend more days this summer on the beach. Let me share with you my Solar Buddies Review.

I came across Solar Buddies by chance via a Facebook post from someone I know, and I immediately thought it was a great looking product. But proof is in the pudding, right? So, I got in touch with the company and asked if they ever work with bloggers and they kindly sent me out two of their Solar Buddies to try out.

As soon as they arrived I was all excited and, with good weather predicted for the weekend of their arrival, we planned a few hours at the beach, our first proper visit to the beach this year. I say proper, we have dipped our toes on New Year’s Day but this time it was a “swim shorts, bikini and sun cream at the ready” type of visit.

With two Solar Buddies at our disposal it meant I could fill one with our son’s factor 50 and one with our factor 30 for our day at the beach.

What exactly are Solar Buddies?

Well, Solar Buddies are a roll-on sun cream applicator that is child friendly. Not only that, but because it is a roll-on applicator, it means less mess and no sticky hands or hands full of sand either.

They were designed by two mums who were looking for a better solution to applying sun cream to kids, particularly for schools who often have a “No Touch” policy when it comes to kids and sun cream. What was initially designed as a product to help teachers apply sunscreen to their students has now become an award-winning product that families love.

How do you use Solar Buddies?

It’s simple really. Just remove the applicator head, fill the bottle with your sunscreen of choice and replace the head. You’re ready to go. It’s really easy, and there is even a place for labelling in case you have more than one and don’t want to get them mixed up. This is such a handy feature for families like us.  

Can kids really use Solar Buddies?

Absolutely. The Solar Buddies are chunky enough to be used by little hands, meaning kids can apply their own sunscreen, or can carry their own product with them if they’re out and about, perhaps on a school trip. The fact they have been given a chunky design means they are ideal for smaller hands and also Little Mr and Miss Independent like our son.

How did we get on with our first use of Solar Buddies?

As I’ve already mentioned we had planned a day at the beach once we knew the weather was going to be suitable. We’ve had mixed weather recently in Portugal, which is unseasonal I’m told. But soon after their arrival the weather was favourable enough to put our Solar Buddies to the test.

I packed up one of our Cabin Zero bags as a beach bag, such a great all-round versatile bag for families, and off we drove for the 10 minutes it takes us to reach our nearest beach. I do love that advantage of living where we are in the Algarve. Before we left we applied our sun creams using the Solar Buddies which I had filled.

While at the beach I reapplied our sun creams at regular intervals and loved the fact my hands were cream-free, each and every time. As I said at the start of this post, there is nothing more annoying about a day at the beach than sticky sun cream hands which then get covered in sand. However, using the Solar Buddies sun cream applicator meant there was none of that malarkey.

It really made a big difference to our day at the beach and we were only driven home by the strength of the sun getting a bit much and a tired boy from all the running around he had done.

What I will say is I unknowingly went against the grain and did what the Solar Buddies recommendations say not to do. I filled our son’s cream from his spray bottle, not realising you aren’t advised to use spray creams in Solar Buddies. The reason for this is they are thinner in consistency and can leak. It is also advisable to avoid sun creams with high alcohol contents as they can affect the adhesive on the head.

However, after 2 weeks in the bottle, our son’s sunscreen hasn’t leaked and I also discovered it is an alcohol-free paediatric sunscreen. We had to buy it for him from a local chemist as he reacts to other normal children’s sun creams. So far so good.

We did find that our own squeeze-bottle sun cream was a bit harder to apply due to the thicker consistency, but this type is the best to use with Solar Buddies.

What we love about the Solar Buddies Sunscreen Applicator

• Easy to use and refill.
• Reusable.
• Solar Buddies are recyclable too, if they ever come to the end of their lives.
• Child-friendly with a great chunky design for smaller hands.
• Gives kids some independence when it comes to applying sun cream.
• Each has a label area to label what sun cream it contains, a handy feature for families if you buy two and want to segregate children’s from adult’s sunscreen.
• The roller head is covered meaning no spills or mess in your beach bag.
• Replacement heads are available to buy.
• New pink and blue Solar Buddies available.
• No more sticky hands covered in cream at the beach, meaning less potential for sandy hands too.
• Volume is sufficient enough for many applications of sun cream.
• Small enough to pop into your handbag for days out.
• Great value-for-money, with starter kits and multi-packs available too.

What we didn’t like about the Solar Buddies Sunscreen Applicator

• It is a bit trickier to use with the advised thicker sun creams. The roller ball almost needs to be able to have pressure applied to allow more cream out to spread. But this was a minor thing for us.

Summary

Overall, we are very happy with the Solar Buddies we received for review. They made applying sun cream to all of us much easier. We didn’t have sun cream covered sticky hands at all and even our son could apply his own sunscreen, albeit with a little help from me to do his neck and back. These are going to be a regular feature in our Summer beach survival kit bag when we head to the beach this year, and I can see us having plenty of beach days as a result.

Solar Buddies are an answer to no more sticky hands and will make beach days, or sun holidays abroad for that matter, a lot easier for families. So if you are sick of sun cream covered hands and are looking for a better way to apply sunscreen to the whole family, look no further than Solar Buddies.

Solar Buddies are available to buy with worldwide delivery. Check out the Solar Buddies shop website for details on prices and available products. Their starter pack or 2 Buddies pack are ideal for families.

Cath x

*We received two Solar Buddies Sunscreen Applicators for the purpose of this review. However, as always, these are our own honest thoughts and opinions about the products.

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