Adding a Continuous Spray SKU: What Brands Should Know

The bag-on-valve (BOV) continuous spray category is growing faster than the broader personal care market. The global bag-on-valve market was valued at USD 1.5 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 2.8 billion by 2033, growing at a 7.1% CAGR. For brand managers in skincare, sun care, and OTC personal care, that growth is showing up as a recurring question: should we add a spray version of our existing line?

If you’ve been thinking about it, this post covers the full picture: why brands are adding the format, which categories translate well, what actually changes in formulation, and what to realistically expect from us in terms of MOQs, timelines, and how to get started.

Why Brands Are Expanding Into Spray

The consumer preference case is simple. Given the choice between a pump bottle and a continuous spray, most consumers choose the spray. No product on your hands, targeted delivery to exactly where you need it, no hand fatigue from repeated pumping. That preference signal is showing up in search volume, shelf expansion, and brand inquiry across SPF, pain relief, and OTC personal care.

The pump sprayer friction is real. Sustained pressing fatigues the hand, output is uneven, and bottles rarely get used to the last drop. A continuous spray can delivers consistent coverage with one press, no hand effort.

Vahid Kasliwala speaks to this directly from years on the manufacturing side: “People used to use the finger sprayers and people’s fingers get tired. Consumers really like a can that can be sprayed.”

Beyond finger fatigue, there’s a reach problem. Back application (relevant for SPF, pain relief, and several OTC categories) is genuinely difficult with a lotion or pump. As Vahid puts it: “If you want to spray your back, it’s hard to rub lotion on your back. You could spray it because you just get it behind you.” Non-contact application is also a practical hygiene argument in acne, antifungal, and hemorrhoid categories, where bacteria transfer from hand to skin is a real concern.

That consumer satisfaction translates directly to brand metrics. Consumers who love the format tend to use it more. They go through it faster not because they’re wasting it, but because they actually reach for it. Higher usage means a compressed repurchase cycle. The format also carries a retail price premium: a comparable lotion or pump typically retails around $2, while a continuous spray version of the same product routinely sells for $3 to $4. Higher satisfaction, higher usage, higher price point.

Continuous spray also carries a higher manufacturing barrier to entry than pump or tube formats, which creates a meaningful competitive moat for brands that invest in it early.

Which Product Categories Translate Best to Continuous Spray

Not every cream or lotion makes a viable spray. The categories with proven consumer demand share a few common traits: targeted delivery benefits, non-contact application logic, and body coverage that hand application complicates. OTC actives in particular have strong category fit, since the spray format doubles as a clinical delivery mechanism, not just a packaging preference.

Here are the categories where we manufacture continuous spray products:

• SPF / Sunscreen: The highest-volume continuous spray category by a significant margin. The spray sunscreen market was valued at USD 2.8 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 5.1 billion by 2033, at a 7.5% CAGR. Full-body coverage, back application, and no white cast from hand-rubbing are the consumer drivers. We’ve worked extensively in this category across SPF lotion sprays and traditional aerosol formats.
• Pain relief (menthol, lidocaine, camphor): Targeted application keeps the active where you want it. As Vahid puts it: “If you have like a menthol, you don’t want your whole body to smell. You can just spray it on and where it hits is where it hits.”
• Acne treatment: Non-contact delivery is the hygiene argument. Spray toners and spot treatments with OTC actives (salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide) avoid transferring bacteria from hands to active breakouts.
• Antifungal: Targeted, non-contact delivery for foot, nail, and groin applications where cream application is awkward. OTC monograph category with specific manufacturing requirements that we’re registered to meet.
• Hemorrhoid sprays: A category with specific continuous spray demand and a confirmed private label gap at major retailers, including Walgreens. We manufacture in this category.

If the product’s benefit story requires rubbing in or depends on tactile application, spray probably isn’t the right format. If reach, contact avoidance, or targeted delivery is part of how the product works, the category case is real.

What Changes When You Move From Cream or Lotion to Spray

This is the part most brands underestimate. Moving to continuous spray is not a packaging decision. It’s a formulation project. Your existing cream doesn’t go “into a can.” It gets reformulated for a different delivery system, and we do that work together.

Viscosity

Continuous spray requires a formula that flows through a valve stem and atomizes correctly. Heavy creams and gels fail this without significant adaptation. A formula that performs well in a tube may be completely non-functional in a pressurized spray system. This is the first thing we look at in any feasibility conversation.

Propellant Architecture

In a bag-on-valve system, the formula lives inside a sealed bag. The propellant (typically compressed nitrogen or air) sits between the bag and the can wall, so the two never touch. This is what enables 360-degree spray and formula purity. The formula still must be stable in a sealed, pressurized environment, and testing is required before production.

Bag Material Compatibility

BOV bags use multi-layer laminated aluminum. Certain formulation chemistries (pH levels, specific actives, reactive compounds) can interact with bag materials. This is a testing step we run for every new formula, not an optional one.

Active Ingredient Behavior

Zinc oxide in SPF, benzoyl peroxide in acne, menthol or lidocaine in pain relief: each carries its own stability and compatibility profile in a pressurized spray environment. This is not a copy-the-lotion-formula exercise, and we know where the common failure points are across categories.

Valve Selection

Coverage, droplet size, and spray angle are determined partly by valve selection, not just the formula. We make these decisions together based on your product’s intended application and end use.

One note on format suitability: products that require shaking before use are not suitable for continuous spray systems by design.

The practical result of all this is that brands that move fastest into spray are the ones who come into the conversation expecting a formulation review, not a packaging swap. We can start that review from wherever you are, whether you have a complete formula, a formula you’re licensing, or just a category and a reference product you like.

MOQs, Timelines, and What to Expect

Continuous spray filling requires specialized pressurized production lines. Vahid estimates that fewer than 50 contract manufacturers in the US are genuinely equipped to produce continuous spray at commercial scale, versus thousands who can run pump or tube formats. That operational reality is behind the “higher barrier to entry” framing: producing a functional, compliant continuous spray is hard, and replicating a well-marketed one is significantly harder than doing the same for a pump or tube.

Our minimum order quantity for BOV/aerosol manufacturing is 10,000 units. That’s higher than tubes or bottles, and it’s worth being direct about what it means. Brands that succeed with continuous spray typically arrive with demand signals already in place: retailer interest, proven repurchase on an existing format, or volume projections that justify the commitment.

On timeline: using a stock formulation from our library, brands typically see first production in roughly 90 days. A tech transfer, adapting a formula already in production at another manufacturer, typically runs 90 to 180 days depending on complexity. Brands in seasonal categories (SPF being the obvious one) need to initiate significantly earlier than they’d expect.

We have stock formulations across spray sunscreen, pain relief, and several OTC categories. If your product concept aligns with something we’ve already run stability and testing on, you can often get to market faster by building on one of those bases rather than starting formula development from scratch. If you have a proprietary formula or want to work from a reference product, we handle that too.

Is Now the Right Time for Your Brand?

A few signals that suggest spray is worth pursuing now: you have an existing product in SPF, pain relief, acne, antifungal, or OTC personal care; the use case involves body coverage, reach, or non-contact application; you have demand signals already established through retailer interest, search volume, or proven repurchase on your current format; and your volume projections support the MOQ threshold.

If you’re already running a pump sprayer, a continuous spray conversion is a format upgrade, and formulation adaptation is typically less significant than converting from a cream or lotion.

The harder case is an early-stage brand without established distribution or proven demand. Higher MOQs make continuous spray a difficult first SKU. The sequence question matters: build the base product, prove demand, then expand into spray.

If the category fits and the demand signals are there, the best next step is a formulation feasibility conversation, not a quote request. We can tell you quickly whether InSpec is a fit and what the path looks like for your specific product.

We manufacture continuous sprays across SPF, OTC, and personal care categories using bag-on-valve technology, with capacity available. Contact us here to start the conversation, or read more about how BOV technology works and our spray manufacturing capabilities.

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