For Ava Chandler-Matthews, one half of the duo behind Australian suncare brand Ultra Violette, what preceded the fall that would plague her company was the stuff of bucket lists: a private dinner with billionaire beauty founder Hailey Bieber.
asserted
that → precede → Bieber
What came after would throw this high into sharp relief.
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came → come → relief
It’s been more than a year since consumer advocacy group Choice published that investigation into sunscreen that would upend the industry.
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that → publish → industry
On June 12, 2025, Choice reported that 16 out of 20 Australian sunscreens failed to meet their SPF claims of 50 or more, implicating plenty of household names including Banana Boat, Invisible Zinc, Neutrogena and the Cancer Council.
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sunscreens → report → Boat
Among them, none suffered the kind of fallout that cult favourite brand Ultra Violette did: its “Lean Screen” product, a mineral zinc sunscreen and one of the most premium products in the cohort (a 75ml tube retailed for $52), trailed the pack with a woeful SPF score of 4 – the only one to score in the single digits.
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product → suffer → digits
Nine months since co-founders Chandler-Matthews, 40, and Bec Jefferd, 50, first agreed to this interview – after cancelling and rescheduling twice – the Melbourne-based friends turned business founders have flown to Sydney for the day for their first sit-down media interview since the story broke.
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story → agree → interview
They arrive at a North Sydney cafe in late July bearing a selection of designer tarts from Melbourne – a peace offering after the rescheduling – ready to talk about how they found themselves in the eye of the storm and how they climbed out of it.
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they → arrive → it
“A trust rebuild is not an interesting story,” says Chandler-Matthews.
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Matthews → say → ?
“It’s not as interesting as a sunscreen scandal where there are interesting players.
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It → ’ → scandal
It became us versus Choice.”
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It → become → Choice
Choice’s initial investigation morphed into a kind of national sunscreen scandal, sowing doubt about the efficacy of sunscreen altogether in the country with the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.
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investigation → morph → world
Dubbed “SunscreenGate”, the entire affair made global headlines as sunscreen experts, scientists and skincare girlies picked apart the merits of sunscreen testing, the role of medicine regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the validity of Choice’s SPF results, not to mention Ultra Violette’s defiant initial response – quickly followed by a sudden volte-face – and then whether it was worth wearing sunscreen at all.
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it → dub → sunscreen
The fallout is ongoing: the TGA’s investigation into the other 15 sunscreens that failed Choice’s testing is yet to wrap, and in March, it opened up consultation for how sunscreen is regulated in Australia, the results of which are expected to be published by the end of the year.
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results → fail → year
The pair will tell you the past 14 months have been “triggering” and “traumatic”.
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months → tell → you
Chandler-Mathers puts it more bluntly: “It’s been the hardest year of my life.
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It → put → life
So often I would come home and I was mute.
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I → come → ?
I couldn’t talk to my husband.
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I → talk → husband
I couldn’t talk to my best friends.
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I → talk → friends
I couldn’t talk to my mum.
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I → talk → mum
Of all 16 sunscreens that failed Choice’s testing, the fall of Ultra Violette was the steepest.
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fall → fail → Violette
In the six years between launching the brand in 2019 and the Choice investigation in 2025, its sunscreens had become a darling of the Australian beauty industry – a cult favourite among young women for its pastel-hued packaging and its lightweight, tinted formulas that felt more at home in an upmarket beauty retailer than a chemist.
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that → launch → chemist
(The Australian Financial Review credited the brand with “making sunscreen sexy”.)
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sunscreen → credit → brand
Chandler-Matthews and Jefferd, alumni of household names like L’Oreal and Napoleon Perdis, met while working at beauty retailer MECCA – Jefferd as head of product development, Chandler-Matthews as brand manager – and they departed in 2017 to build what would eventually become Ultra Violette.
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what → meet → 2017
Neither are scientists – they enlisted a force of product developers, in-house regulators and chemists to build Ultra Violette – but their marketing backgrounds were pivotal in the brand’s sharp rise, enlisting influencers like Gen Z-favourite Sophia Begg (@sophadophaa to her 1.5 million TikTok followers).
Doors opened for them with financial injections from private equity and the support of beauty retailers such as Adore Beauty, Sephora, Net-A-Porter and Harrods.
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Doors → enlist → Beauty
They had just launched in the US market when Choice’s report forced them to focus not on thriving, but simply surviving.
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report → launch → them
What the saga partially succeeded in doing was exposing the public’s limited understanding of how sunscreen works – and just how volatile the testing process can be.
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process → succeed → understanding
Acknowledged by the TGA and the sunscreen industry, the current standard for SPF testing in Australia and internationally is inherently variable.
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standard → acknowledge → Australia
This method (in vivo) involves applying sunscreen to 10 to 20 human subjects, who are then exposed to UV light.
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who → involve → light
A trained tester observes this process, noting the time it takes for skin to redden (an assessment procedure which is itself prone to error), to determine the product’s SPF.
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which → train → SPF
In Australia, most non-cosmetic sunscreens are regulated as medicines, meaning to get on the market they need TGA approval.
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they → regulate → approval
To do so, brands send a product to a laboratory of their choosing to be tested according to the Australian and International standard.
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brands → do → standard
If approved, this is typically the first and only time in a product’s lifecycle it is tested.
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it → approve → lifecycle
And because the TGA doesn’t conduct its own testing (except in select circumstances), Choice has historically been the only body in Australia to conduct testing independent of brands.
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Choice → conduct → brands
Its last report on Australian sunscreen, published in 2015, found four out of six products tested failed to meet their advertised SPF level.
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products → publish → level
When the worst year of her life began, Chandler-Matthews was in California’s Napa Valley, dining with beauty mogul Hailey Bieber, having just spoken at The Business of Fashion’s global beauty forum, headlined by the influencer.
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Matthews → begin → influencer
Choice released its report at midnight AEST, and although Chandler-Matthews and Jefferd had known it was coming, they hadn’t been told exactly when.
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they → release → AEST
The advocacy group had alerted Ultra Violette about its test results in March, three months prior to its public release, prompting Chandler-Matthews and Jefferd to order additional testing on every batch of Lean Screen then on the market.
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group → alert → market
They revisited manufacturing records and asked Choice for more detail on its testing methods.
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They → revisit → methods
The SPF figure that Choice’s testing (conducted at Eurofins Dermatest in Sydney) arrived at – 4 – was incomprehensible to them.
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testing → conduct → them
“We genuinely could not understand how that result was even possible,” says Jefferd.
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Jefferd → understand → ?
…and 119 more, not listed.
The Aporia
