Why She Started Brush On Block

When her oldest daughter developed a sensitivity to chemical sunscreens, Andrea started paying closer attention to what she'd been putting on her kids' skin — and why getting them to wear it consistently was such a battle in the first place.

What she found surprised her. The problem wasn't that people didn't care about sun protection. It was that most sunscreen formats made consistent use genuinely difficult. Messy application. Heavy feel. No realistic way to reapply without starting over. The design of sunscreen itself was working against the behavior it was supposed to create.

That insight became the foundation of Brush On Block. If you design for real life — for the school drop-off, the workday, the commute, the moments people are actually in the sun — you get a product people will actually use. And a product people actually use is the one that actually protects them.

Brush On Block launched in 2011 with a mineral powder sunscreen in a brush applicator, a format specifically designed for easy application and realistic mid-day reapplication. What started as a solution for her family has grown into a full mineral sun care system with over a million mineral sunscreen products sold.

Her Point of View on Sun Protection

Most sunscreen brands design for beach days. Andrea designs for Tuesdays.

The sun protection problem she's spent fifteen years working on isn't an awareness problem. People know they should wear sunscreen. The problem is behavioral — the friction between knowing and doing, and the gap between first application in the morning and the reapplication that should happen hours later but almost never does.

Her work at Brush On Block is grounded in a simple principle: ease drives consistency, and consistency is what actually protects your skin over time. That philosophy shapes every product decision, from format and packaging to how the brand communicates about sun protection — grounded in how people actually live, not how they wish they did.

What She Writes and Speaks About

Andrea's writing focuses on the behavioral side of sun protection — the habits, routines, and design choices that make daily use realistic rather than aspirational. Her blog at Brush On Block covers mineral sunscreen formulation and design, apply and reapply by design, building sun care routines that stick, sun protection for families and kids, and the case for mineral-only sun care.

She writes from fifteen years of lived experience building a mineral sunscreen brand from the ground up — overseeing product development, ideating new formats, and watching firsthand how design changes customer behavior at scale.

Credentials

• Founder & CEO, Brush On Block, 2011 to present
• Fifteen years in mineral sun care product development and innovation
• Originator of the plastic-free refillable powder sunscreen system, developed through years of iteration to eliminate single-use packaging without compromising performance
• Over one million mineral sunscreen products sold
• Retail partnerships with Anthropologie, Costco, Talbots, Everything But Water, the FSA Store, and Amazon
  

As Seen In

Oprah Daily · Allure · NBC Select · People · Good Housekeeping · Women's Health · Real Simple · Glamour · Self · CNN Underscored · Prevention · Marie Claire · W Magazine · Well+Good · and many others

A Note on Expertise

Andrea is not a dermatologist, and she doesn't position herself as one. Her authority comes from fifteen years of product design, development oversight, and direct observation of how real people use — and don't use — sun protection in daily life. She believes that kind of practical, behavioral expertise is exactly what's been missing from the sunscreen conversation.

Her Philosophy

Healthy skin isn't built on perfection — it's built on consistency, and consistency should feel easy.

That's what Brush On Block is designed for. And it's what she writes about, thinks about, and works toward every day.

Andrea Wetsel is the founder and CEO of Brush On Block, a mineral sunscreen brand focused on making daily sun protection easy, consistent, and realistic for real life. She writes about mineral sun care, reapplication by design, and habit-based sun protection routines for individuals and families. Brush On Block launched in 2011 and has sold over one million mineral sunscreen products.