From Brand Builder to Clean Beauty Entrepreneur: How Sarah Miller Is Reimagining Sun Care With EthoSun
After nearly two decades building brands across media, entertainment, sports and lifestyle, Sarah Miller turned a personal encounter with coral reef damage into a new kind of consumer business—one designed to bring together high-performance sun protection, skincare and environmental responsibility.
The Moment That Changed the Question
Sarah Miller had spent years helping other companies tell their stories.
Through Axis Entertainment, the strategic media, branding and communications company she has led for more than 17 years, Miller worked across entertainment, sports, tourism, health and lifestyle. Her professional world was built around brands, audiences, partnerships and cultural influence.
Then a different kind of brand challenge caught her attention.
During years of travelling to Roatán in the Caribbean, Miller witnessed changes to the coral reef and marine environment. The experience prompted her to look differently at a product she had used for years: sunscreen.
The question was no longer simply whether sunscreen protected skin.
Could it protect skin without compromising the environment?
That question became the starting point for EthoSun, the Scottsdale-based clean beauty and sun care company Miller founded in 2024.
Its proposition is deliberately positioned at the intersection of skin health, mineral sun protection, luxury beauty and environmental responsibility.
Building a Different Kind of Sun Care Brand
The sunscreen category is crowded, but Miller was not interested in simply adding another SPF product to the market.
EthoSun was built around a broader proposition: consumers should not have to choose between an elevated skincare experience, effective sun protection and conscious consumption.
The company's formulations centre on non-nano zinc oxide, alongside ingredients such as prickly pear, plant-derived squalane and Big Kelp Algae. Its current collection includes Daily Mineral SPF products for face and body as well as complementary skincare and bath products.
That creates a different relationship with sunscreen.
Rather than treating SPF as something consumers reluctantly apply before going to the beach, EthoSun positions sun care as part of an everyday skincare ritual.
The company's philosophy is summed up by its own positioning: “Skin First, Planet Always.”
When Sustainability Becomes Part of the Product
For Miller, sustainability is not intended to sit separately from the product.
EthoSun says its approach extends from formulation and ingredient sourcing to packaging, supply-chain relationships and conservation initiatives. The company also places considerable emphasis on ingredient transparency and educating consumers about what they put on their skin.
That philosophy is reflected in the brand's manifesto, which frames integrity, transparency, environmental stewardship and social responsibility as principles guiding business decisions.
The result is a brand attempting to sell more than a functional benefit.
It is selling a choice about what consumers want their everyday purchases to represent.
That positioning becomes particularly relevant in a market where consumers increasingly encounter questions around ingredients, sustainability and environmental claims.
For EthoSun, the answer is to make those values part of the brand architecture rather than an afterthought.
Science, Skin Care and the Luxury Gap
One of EthoSun's strategic decisions is to avoid positioning mineral sunscreen as merely the “natural” alternative.
Instead, the company wants mineral protection to sit within a premium skincare experience.
Its product philosophy focuses on fewer, purpose-selected ingredients while combining mineral SPF protection with skin-nourishing components. Prickly pear is positioned for its antioxidant and hydrating properties, while plant-derived squalane is used for
moisturisation and Big Kelp Algae forms part of the company's ocean-inspired formulation story.
That distinction matters.
The opportunity Miller sees is not simply in clean beauty. It is in bringing together several consumer categories that increasingly overlap: clean beauty, wellness, travel, sustainability and performance.
The goal is a product that can move from the beach to everyday life without asking consumers to compromise on aesthetics or experience.
The Hard Part Happens Behind the Brand
Miller's background gives her an advantage in storytelling and brand strategy. But launching a sun care company required a different set of capabilities.
The SPF and beauty industries involve complex formulation, testing, manufacturing, regulatory considerations, supply chains and capital requirements.
EthoSun's development therefore demanded more than a strong brand concept.
There were manufacturing and partnership timelines to manage, operational decisions to make and financial investments to absorb. Miller describes having to navigate setbacks while simultaneously overseeing strategy, branding, operations, partnerships, legal considerations and team management.
That experience reinforced one of the realities of entrepreneurship: a compelling vision is only the beginning.
The founder still has to build the infrastructure capable of delivering it.
For Miller, setbacks became part of the learning process rather than evidence that the original idea was wrong.
A Founder Who Already Knew How to Build Brands
There is an important distinction between Miller's entrepreneurial journey and that of a first-time founder.
She entered EthoSun with nearly two decades of experience building and positioning brands through Axis Entertainment. Her professional network has included major names across sports, entertainment, technology and lifestyle, giving her exposure to large-scale marketing, partnerships and consumer behaviour.
But moving from advising and promoting brands to owning a physical consumer product is a fundamentally different challenge.
With EthoSun, Miller is responsible not only for the story surrounding the product, but for the product itself.
That means the promise made in the marketing has to be supported by formulation, manufacturing, customer experience and execution.
In many ways, EthoSun represents an extension of the skill set she has developed throughout her career—but with considerably more operational ownership.
Challenging an Established Category
EthoSun's ambition also puts Miller in tension with an established sun care industry.
The company has chosen to advocate for mineral-based formulations, ingredient transparency and environmental accountability, while deliberately building a luxury aesthetic around those choices.
Its brand manifesto is unusually direct about that intent, describing EthoSun as a company that wants to challenge conventional expectations around what sunscreen can look and feel like.
Whether that positioning ultimately changes consumer behaviour will depend on execution, education and the brand's ability to earn trust.
But the strategic idea is clear: sustainability does not have to mean sacrificing desirability, and luxury does not have to mean abandoning responsibility.
Building a Business Around a Bigger Idea
For Miller, the larger opportunity extends beyond sunscreen.
EthoSun's current brand ecosystem includes skincare, bath products, education around sun care and sustainability initiatives. The company also presents conservation and community impact as part of its longer-term purpose.
That creates the possibility of turning a single product category into a broader lifestyle brand built around conscious living.
It also explains why Miller describes EthoSun less as a sunscreen company and more as a movement.
The commercial challenge will be making that movement tangible—through products that perform, transparent claims, credible science, responsible sourcing and an experience consumers genuinely want to return to.
For a founder who has spent much of her career understanding how brands become culturally relevant, that may be the most interesting part of the journey.
The Next Chapter
Miller's advice to women entrepreneurs is rooted in the same philosophy behind EthoSun: trust the vision before everyone else understands it.
She emphasises resilience, strategic relationships, understanding the business side of entrepreneurship and protecting the value of one's expertise.
But perhaps the more revealing lesson is embedded in the company she is now building.
A career in branding taught Miller how to create stories.
A moment in the Caribbean gave her a problem worth solving.
And entrepreneurship gave her the opportunity to bring those two experiences together.
EthoSun is still a young company. But its ambition is clear: to make sun protection part of a more conscious relationship between people, beauty and the planet.
The question Miller started with was simple: Can we protect ourselves without compromising what we want to protect?
EthoSun is her attempt to answer it.