Hawaiian Tropic was founded by Mr Ron Rice in 1969. It was the largest privately owned manufacturer of sun care products in the United States until being acquired in May 2007 by Playtex Products, Inc., which when combined with Playtex's other brand of sun care, Banana Boat, made Playtex the largest manufacturer of sun care products in the Western Hemisphere. Shortly thereafter, Playtex Products was purchased by Energizer Holdings Inc. in a deal valued at $1.9 billion.

The Miss Hawaiian Tropic International Pageant was launched in 1984 and it was won by Swedish finalist Cecilia Hörberg. Today, it is one of the world's longest continually running pageants and is even featured in The Guinness Book Of Records as the World's Biggest Swimwear Pageant. The stunning and eye catching Hawaiian Tropic Promo Team is a famiiliar sight at mega events around the glove such as the 24 Hour Le Mans Race, the Superbowl, Nascar Races, Indy Races and the Olympic Games etc..

This is the Official Site for the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Australia Model Search. Miss Hawaiian Tropic has been running in Australia since 1991 and is now officially the nation’s longest continually running swimwear based model search. It was introduced by, and is still conducted by Pacific Enterprises - a Gold Coast based company widely recognized as the industry leaders in this highly specialized field of entertainment. Pacific Enterprises now also manages the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Pageant in New Zealand.

The exhaustive nation-wide search is usually held in premier entertainment venues in which each venue runs qualifying heats and semi-finals leading up to the venue final in which one winner is selected to represent the venue/sponsor in the national Final.