Christine Esposito, Associate Editor09.28.09
Sandsation Body Powder is enriched with an array of skin caring ingredients. |
The crash of the waves. The golden sun above. The warm sand between your toes—and then in your shoes…and your car…and your house.
Simply put, getting sand off your feet is no day at the beach. Even a rinse under the shower or spray of the hose can’t remove all of those pesky particles.
Enter Sandsation Body Powder, a new product from Grunrick Enterprises, Inc., a start-up based in Nesconset, NY. The sand colored powder, which features a blend of natural iron oxides, easily removes sand from skin without water, towels or any type of applicator. Developed by Michele Calluzzo-Grunhaus, Mike Grunhaus and John and Diane Rorick, Sandsation is also enriched with a blend of antioxidant, skin-protectant and anti-irritant ingredients such as zinc oxide, aloe and vitamin E to soothe irritation and leave skin feeling refreshed. It comes in two scents—Coconut and Melon Splash—as well as an unscented version.
The team turned a local private label cosmetics company to develop the formulation, as they didn’t have experience in beauty or personal care.
“Although we know a lot more about these [markets] now, we are basically just regular working families who had an idea and decided to put in the time, money, research and effort to try to bring our idea to life.As beachgoers, however, we do feel that we are experts in just how annoying it can be to get sand off at the beach,” Mike Grunhaus, chief executive officer, told happi.com
His wife Michele conjured up the idea back in 2005.
“She sat on it for a while and then brought it to my attention in 2006. I thought it was an amazing concept,” he said.“Being that we both worked full time—and had a 1 year old, we slowly began working on bringing the idea to life as side work, mostly at night after our son went to bed. It took many long hours of research and development, not only acquiring ingredients and mixing them at home, but to accomplish everything else that goes along with starting a company and creating a new product—much of which we had to figure out.”
Sandsation Body Powder easily removes sand from the skin without water or applicators. |
“When we found this out, it only motivated us even more to complete our goal of creating our product. The main difference though, is that all of these other products required some type of applicator to use such as a brush, towel, mitt or powder puff. This doesn’t really work though because you can’t really get into the cracks in skin or in between fingers and toes to get the sand off, unless you are using your hands to apply the product, In addition, it’s not really sanitary for multiple people to use the same applicator to wipe on their skin,” he said.
Sandsation Body Powder is housed in an 8oz bottle with a twist cap. Users simply shake the powder into their hand or onto their skin and wipe it away the sand.
The product officially debuted in July—halfway through the beach season in the Northeast U.S.Still, company officials see Sandsation as a product with year-round potential and are focused on making a big splash next swimsuit season.
“Our primary goal this year and leading toward next summer, of course is to reach out to retailers across the country to get our products onto store shelves—preferably right next to sun block—as we feel they go hand-in-hand,” Mr. Grunhaus said. “We also want to focus on beach/destination weddings as we think our product would make for a fun, unique favor for wedding parties and wedding guests.”
The company has approached drug store chains and is looking to build affiliate relationships with various Internet retailers and other outlets. For now, Sandsation Body Powder can only be purchased through the company’s online store, www.BeSandFree.com, for $6.99.