diff --git a/tasks/browsersync.js b/tasks/browsersync.js
index 7e30b31..6798af4 100644
--- a/tasks/browsersync.js
+++ b/tasks/browsersync.js
@@ -4,6 +4,11 @@ function browsersync(gulp, $, config, css, js) {
         open: false
     });
 
+    // set a config param to signal browserSync is active;
+    // styles.js will suppress errors for this env to avoid
+    // the watch process exiting on errors
+    config.livereload = true;
+
     gulp.watch(config.styles.watch, { usePolling: true }, css);
     gulp.watch(config.scripts.watch, { usePolling: true }, js);
 }
diff --git a/tasks/styles.js b/tasks/styles.js
index a8562f5..e13f0fd 100644
--- a/tasks/styles.js
+++ b/tasks/styles.js
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+const PluginError = require('plugin-error');
+
 function styles(gulp, $, config) {
     // take the array and map over each script config object in it
     const tasks = config.styles.files.map((stylesheet) => {
@@ -15,7 +17,12 @@ function styles(gulp, $, config) {
                     pipeStdout: true,
                     sassOutputStyle: 'nested',
                     includePaths: config.styles.includePaths ? config.styles.includePaths : [config.npmdir]
-                }).on('error', $.sass.logError))
+                }).on('error', function(error) {
+                    const message = new PluginError('sass', error.messageFormatted).toString();
+                    process.stderr.write(`${message}\n`);
+                    config.livereload ? $.through2.obj() : process.exitCode = 1;
+                    done();
+                }))
                 .pipe($.postcss(config.styles.postCssPlugins(config, stylesheet)))
                 .pipe($.concat(stylesheet.name))
                 .pipe($.cleanCss({