Overview Designed a welcome email for Sol Brush, a mineral SPF brush-on sunscreen made for kids, built around a single insight: sunscreen isn't the product parents want; relief from the sunscreen battle is. The email leads with the frustration before it ever introduces the solution.

Context Sol Brush's entire reason for existing is a familiar parenting moment: sticky hands, messy lotion, and a kid squirming away mid-application. Most sunscreen brands sell on SPF numbers and ingredient lists first, personality second. Sol Brush's actual differentiator, a full-spectrum SPF 50 mineral formula applied mess-free in seconds, only matters once a parent feels understood. With a brand already trusted by 85,000+ families, the welcome email needed to earn a new parent's attention emotionally before it earned it functionally.

The Challenge Typical product welcome emails tend to:

Open with the product, not the problem it solves.

Lead with ingredient/feature lists before establishing why the reader should care.

Use polished, stock-feeling lifestyle photography that undercuts a brand's warmth.

For Sol Brush, the challenge was to design an email that:

Led with emotional recognition before any product explanation

Built trust progressively, rather than front-loading every feature at once

Felt like a warm, lived-in family moment, not a manufactured campaign

Strategic Approach The email was built around an agitate-then-solve model: naming the reader's frustration in language they'd use themselves before introducing the product as the natural relief.

Frustration named → Solution introduced → Trust reinforced → Action taken

The goal was to make a parent feel "they get it" before they ever felt "sold to."

Design Approach Purpose: Make an unfamiliar product feel like an obvious, welcome relief, without losing warmth in the process.

The email leads with "Our kids hated sunscreen. So we created one they actually like," immediately followed by a "Sound familiar?" section calling out sticky hands, messy lotion, and kids running from application. Real, candid family photography replaces staged product shots, and wavy, soft section dividers replace hard rectangular breaks, reinforcing an unhurried, sun-soaked tone throughout.

Bright, warm palette (sunny yellow, punchy pink, soft sky blue) consistent with a playful, family-first identity

Real photography over stock or studio-feeling imagery

Soft, organic section transitions instead of rigid grid breaks

Trust-building checklist structure (mineral formula, SPF 50, mess-free, all-ages safe) placed after emotional buy-in, not before.

Conversion Thinking The email avoided leading with specs or urgency and instead focused on:

Establishing emotional recognition before any product claim

Layering trust progressively, a feature checklist, then real social proof ("Trusted by 85,000+ families")

Placing three separate CTAs at natural emotional high points, rather than isolating a single ask at the bottom

The CTA strategy moved from Recognize → Trust → Act

Outcome This project explores how a welcome email can sell an unfamiliar product by leading with a familiar feeling rather than a feature set, using emotional precision instead of persuasion tactics to build early trust. It was built as a speculative concept piece and shared publicly across LinkedIn and X as part of an ongoing case study series.

Role & Tools Role: Email Designer Tools: Figma Project Type: Speculative welcome email concept