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There's a particular grief that comes with a beloved product being discontinued. It's not serious grief, obviously — but it's real. The product was part of a ritual, a memory, a version of yourself in summer. And then it was gone, replaced by something inferior or simply by nothing at all.
Sunscreen devotees know this feeling well. The category has lost some of its most beloved formulas over the decades, and the replacements have rarely measured up. Here are the ones people still search for — and what happened to them.
Bain de Soleil Orange Gelée
The most searched discontinued sunscreen of all time. Bain de Soleil's original tanning gelée was in production from the 1960s through the late 1990s and achieved a level of brand loyalty almost unheard of in personal care. The lightweight gel, the golden tint, the distinctive scent — nothing that replaced it came close. People still find old tubes on eBay.
Summer Gelée is the authentic recreation of this formula — reverse-engineered to match the original chemistry with modern SPF 30 protection. If Bain de Soleil is what you're looking for, this is the answer.
Coppertone Dark Tanning Oil SPF 2
From an era when SPF 2 was considered responsible sun protection, Coppertone's original dark tanning oil has a devoted following among those who miss the combination of deep color development and that specific coconut-forward scent. The formula has been reformulated multiple times; the original is long gone.
Hawaiian Tropic Original Dark Tanning Oil
Hawaiian Tropic's original dark tanning oil — not the current reformulation — had a cult following for its exotic fragrance blend and the genuinely impressive tans it produced. The current formula uses different ingredients and a different scent profile. Forum threads dedicated to the original remain active decades after discontinuation.
Banana Boat Summer Color
A color-enhancing sunscreen that combined protection with bronzing compounds in a way that produced noticeably warmer skin tones. Discontinued in the early 2000s, it's remembered fondly by those who remember the distinctive results it produced.
The Common Thread
What unites all of these is that they understood something the current sunscreen market has mostly forgotten: the experience of applying sunscreen matters. The texture, the scent, the ritual — these things affect whether people actually use the product. Protection that feels like pleasure gets used more consistently than protection that feels like medicine.
Summer Gelée was built on that understanding. One of these iconic formulas is back.
