How Headhunter Pioneered a Category in Action Sports Industry
Share
In the world of surf sunscreen there is the original and there is everyone else.
Headhunter is the original.
It Started at the Most Legendary Wave on Earth
In the early 1990s co-founder Drew Littlemore & Doug Littlemore were working as a surf guide and boatman at Tavarua, Fiji — home to Cloudbreak, one of the most celebrated waves on the planet. They were in the water every day. Long sessions under relentless Fijian sun. Heavy wipeouts. Endless salt water exposure.
Standard sunscreens weren't built for this. They washed off. They stung. They weren't designed for what surfers actually put their bodies through.
So they built one that was.
The Birth of a Category
Broad spectrum SPF 50. Eighty minutes of water resistance. Mineral-based and reef safe. A light brown tinted formula that blended naturally with skin and was a full physical blocker.
Headhunter didn't enter an existing category. It created one.
Every standard the surf sunscreen industry now considers baseline — reef safe formulation, serious water resistance, mineral active ingredients — was pioneered by a couple of surfers in Fiji who were tired of products that couldn't keep up.
Still #1 After 30+ Years
Surfers have one of the most finely tuned authenticity detectors of any consumer group on earth. They know the difference between a brand built by surfers and a brand built to sell to surfers.
Headhunter has always been the former.
The surfers who discovered Headhunter in its earliest days still use it today. Their kids surf with it. A new generation is growing up with it as the standard against which every other surf sunscreen is measured.
That is what it means to pioneer a category — and spend three decades proving you deserve to lead it.
The original. The best. The standard.