Q. What are the roots of the professional indoor tanning industry?
A. Europeans started tanning indoors with sunlamps that emitted ultraviolet light as a therapeutic exercise to harness the positive psychological and physiological effects of exposure to ultraviolet light. This practice became widespread in Europe, particularly in sun-deprived countries, in the 1970s long before the first indoor tanning facility was established in the United States in the late 1970s. Although indoor tanning in the United States is considered a cosmetic exercise, the industry’s roots are therapeutic and many customers come to tanning facilities for that purpose.
Q. How large is the professional indoor tanning industry in the United States today?
A. With professional indoor tanning businesses in most every town in America, the indoor tanning industry has grown substantially in 25 years and today is a strong part of the American small business community. About 10 percent of the American population will visit an indoor tanning facility at some point during the year.
Total Number of Professional Indoor Tanning Facility Businesses 25,000
Total Employment at Professional Tanning Businesses 160,000
Total Professional Indoor Tanning Facility Customer Base 28 million
Total Economic Impact of Professional Indoor Tanning Facilities $5 billion
Q. Who owns indoor tanning facilities?
A. Most indoor tanning facilities in the United States are small businesses, and more than 50 percent of them have female ownership, as compared to 25 percent of businesses in other industries, according to the U.S. Census.
Q. Why do people patronize indoor tanning facilities?
A. People enjoy sunlight and tanning - outdoors under the sun, or indoors in a professional tanning facility - for myriad reasons. While tanning facilities in the United States are geared up to deliver cosmetic tans using protocol designed to minimize the risk of sunburn, we know that clients are coming to facilities for more than just a good tan, but also to enjoy the positive psychological and physiological effects of regular exposure to ultraviolet light.
Q. What is the tanning industry’s position on UV light?
A. The professional indoor tanning industry’s scientifically supported position is summed up in this declaration: Moderate tanning, for individuals who can develop a tan, is the smartest way to maximize the potential benefits of sun exposure while minimizing the potential risks associated with either too much or too little sunlight.
The professional indoor tanning industry teaches sunburn prevention - both indoors in the salon and outdoors under the sun. And evidence suggests we teach this message more effectively than those who promote complete sun avoidance. According to tanning industry research, non-tanners sunburn more often than people who tan indoors.
Since the mid-1980s, there has been considerable public health concern and attention on the risks of overexposure to ultraviolet light. The indoor tanning industry shares that concern. Unfortunately, much of the discussion went too far - the risks about UV light were overstated and the benefits were completely ignored.
Thankfully, public awareness of this issue is coming back into focus. There are known physiological and psychological benefits associated with UV light exposure and there are many other potential benefits that appear likely and need further research. The risks of UV light exposure, on the other hand, are mainly associated with sunburn and overexposure (particularly among individuals who are fair skinned or genetically predisposed to skin damage) and are easily managed by practicing sunburn prevention.
The professional indoor tanning salon industry is part of the
solution in the ongoing battle against sunburn and in teaching people how to identify a proper and practical life-long skin care regimen.
Q. What is a base tan?
A tan is the body’s natural protection against sunburn. Your skin is designed to tan as a natural body function.
Each year, millions of American patronize professional indoor tanning facilities in the spring, prior to sun-filled vacations or outdoor summertime activities, to establish what tanners know as a “base tan.” Doing so enables vacationers to gradually increase their exposure to ultraviolet light in a non-burning fashion.
Q. Why is indoor tanning more responsible than outdoor tanning?
A. Indoor tanning, for individuals who can tan, is an intelligent way to minimize the risk of contracting sunburn while maximizing the enjoyment and benefit of having a tan. In a professional indoor tanning facility, tanners are taught by trained personnel how their skin type reacts to sunlight and how to avoid sunburn outdoors, as well as in a salon.
Tanning in a professional facility today minimizes risk because commercial tanning salons in the United States and in most Canadian provinces are regulated by the government. In the United States, exposure times for every tanning session are derived from a schedule present on every piece of equipment that takes into account the tanner’s skin type and the intensity of the equipment to deliver a dosage of sunlight designed to minimize the risk of sunburn. The schedule, regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, also takes into account how long an individual has been tanning, increasing exposure times gradually to minimize the possibility of burning. That kind of control is impossible outdoors, where variables including seasonality, time of day, weather conditions, reflective surfaces and altitude all make outdoor tanning a random act and sunburn prevention more difficult.
Q. Is Tanning Natural?
A. Yes. Tanning is your body’s natural protection against sunburn - it is what your body is designed to do. Anti-tanning lobbyists falsely refer to this process as “damage” to your skin, but calling a tan “damage” is a dangerous oversimplification. Here is why:
Calling a tan damage to your skin is like calling exercise damage to your muscles. Consider, when one exercises you are actually tearing tiny muscle fibers in your body. On the surface, examined at the micro-level, that could be called “damage.” But that damage on the micro-level is your body’s natural way on the macro-level of building stronger muscle tissue. So to call exercise “damaging” to muscles would be terribly deceiving. The same can be said of sun exposure: Your body is designed to repair any damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light exposure. Developing a tan is its natural way to protect against the dangers of sunburn and further exposure.
Saying that any ultraviolet light exposure causes skin damage is a dangerous oversimplification. It would be like saying that since water causes drowning, humans should avoid all water. Yes, water causes drowning, but our bodies also need water; we would die without it. Similarly, we need ultraviolet light exposure; we would die without it. It is the professional indoor tanning industry’s position that sunburn prevention is a more effective message than total abstinence, which ultimately encourages abuse. It is a responsible, honest approach to the issue.
Q. But What About the Increasing Rates of Skin Cancer?
A. You must realize that skin cancer has a 20- to 30-year latency period; the rates of skin cancer we are seeing today are a function of the ignorant misbehavior of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Recall: Society used to view sunburns as an inconvenient right of spring - a precursor to developing a summer tan. Society felt that sunburns would “fade” into tans, and so tanners hit the beaches and blacktops with baby oil and reflectors. Severe burns were commonplace. Today we know how reckless that approach was, and the rates of skin cancer we are seeing today reflect that ignorance.
What’s more, you must realize that the photobiology research community has determined that most skin cancers are related to a strong pattern of intermittent exposure to ultraviolet light in those people who are genetically predisposed to skin cancer, and not simply to cumulative exposure. That again suggests that heredity and a pattern of repeated sunburning is what we need to prevent. And that kind of prevention is exactly what the indoor tanning industry is doing effectively.
The indoor tanning industry believes that our role in teaching sunburn prevention will help to reverse the increases that largely are a result of misbehavior that took place years ago before the professional tanning industry existed and before we were organized to teach sunburn prevention.
Q. What About Melanoma Skin Cancer?
A. Melanoma is the only form of skin cancer that is aggressive with any regularity. But you need to understand this clearly: Melanoma skin cancer does not fit the mold of other skin cancers for the following reasons:
Melanoma is more common in people who work indoors than in those who work outdoors.
Melanoma most commonly appears on parts of the body that do not receive regular exposure to sunlight.
Heredity, fair skin, an abnormally high number of moles on one’s body (above 40) and a history of repeated childhood sunburns have all been implicated as potential risk factors for this disease. But because people who receive regular exposure to sunlight get fewer melanomas, blanket statements that ultraviolet light causes melanoma cannot be made. Indeed, some studies have found that an individual’s genetic susceptibility to sunburn, and not the actual sunburn incidence itself, is the risk factor. Further, most studies on indoor tanning have not shown a statistically significant connection between commercial use of tanning equipment and an increased risk of melanoma.
That is important, considering that most of the studies did not account for confounding variables such as outdoor exposure to sunlight, childhood sunburns, type of tanning equipment utilized and duration and quantity of exposures. (What’s more, European studies on this topic do not account for regulations in place in the United States governing maximum exposure times for people of all skin types.)
So the professional indoor tanning industry is doing its part to help individuals of all skin types minimize their risks by teaching them how to avoid sunburn at all costs. We are promoting smart, moderate tanning for those individuals who can develop a tan.
Q. How Do You Define Moderate Tanning?
A. The term “moderate tanning” means something different for every different individual, and that is an important point. The bottom line - what we call “The Golden Rule of Smart Tanning” - is simple: Don’t EVER sunburn. A fair-skinned, red-headed, green-eyed person may not have the ability to develop a tan without sunburning. This person should not attempt to tan then. On the other hand, most of us have the ability to develop a tan, and the majority of us tan very easily. Moderation, in our view, means avoiding sunburn at all costs. Going about that agenda will mean something different to every different person.
Q. How Does Your Skin Tan?
A. The tanning process is the same, whether you tan outdoors under the sun or indoors in a professional indoor tanning facility. This natural process takes place when your skin is exposed to ultraviolet light. Here is an overview.
Light is composed of energy waves that travel from the sun to the Earth. Each energy wave can be identified by its length in nanometers, (nm), which is one-billionth of a meter. Light can be broken into three general categories: infrared, visible and invisible. Ultraviolet light is in the invisible light spectrum.
There are three kinds of ultraviolet light: UVA, UVB and UVC. Two of those categories, UVA and UVB, are utilized in indoor tanning equipment.
Tanning equipment is designed to replicate UVA and UVB produced by the sun, but tanning lamps emit the light in carefully controlled and government-regulated combinations. The end result is that the user has control over their exposure. That is why people risk greater skin damage tanning outdoors than they do by using tanning equipment.
Tanning itself takes place in the skin’s outermost layer: the epidermis. There are three major types of skin cells in your epidermis: Basal cells, keratinocytes and melanocytes. All play different roles in the tanning process.
Everyone has roughly the same number of melanocytes in their bodies-about 5 million. Your heredity determines how much pigment your melanocytes can produce.
Melanocytes release extra melanosomes whenever ultraviolet light waves touch them. This produces a tan in your skin.
The tanning process is your skin’s natural way of protecting itself from sunburn and overexposure. Calling a tan “damage” to the skin isn’t doing justice to the whole truth. Your skin is designed to tan to protect itself.