Invariably, the best way to prolong a sunless tan is to keep the skin highly moisturized and not use exfoliating cleansers. Therefore, it is a good idea to stock a vast array of supplies for moisturizing as well as non-abrasive cleaning agents for your clients. You will also gain more revenue as a result because you will be their one stop shop for everything they need.

One particular item for prolonging a tan is a specifically designed extender that is hydrating in nature which includes bronzers and natural extracts that neutralize free radicals for healthier skin. Extenders that also include Aloe Vera delivers healing, skin conditioning, moisturizing and soothing benefits to the skin which helps prolong the color and to allow for the tan to fade evenly. Nothing is worse than a patchy fade. Extenders also come in towelettes for quick hydration on the go.

There are other prolonging products available that are specifically designed for legs. Many will not just help to hydrate the skin buy will smooth and firm the legs while prolonging a sunless tan. In addition, there are face protectors that include sunscreen as well as boosting the golden color you want. There are even some that contain Kombucha Extract, which promotes even skin tone, skin-firming and skin-plumping. These will usually contain high concentrations of Vitamin E for extreme moisturizing for protecting against the drying effects of the sun.

Many of these boosting or color-preserving products will come with very low concentrations, usually not more than 3% of DHA. Fortunately though, they typically will not further darken your tan unless they are specifically designed to do just that. Products for the expressed extension of a tan will only generally hydrate the skin and keep the color looking natural. Be careful though, sometimes if you mix brands – e.g. one brand for tanning and one brand for extenders – you can get an unwanted orange effect.

When you want to give your clients a perfect sunless tan, you want to stock your inventory with the perfect sunless tanning solutions. You will also want to include extenders and such to prolong the life of their tans. In effect, it would be a good idea and a potentially very lucrative one to become their one stop shop for all of their skin care needs, especially for those areas of the body that dry out quicker, for the most fulfilling pre- and post-tanning experience. Many of these will contain very low amounts of DHA and have many anti-oxidant ingredients to help prolong the perfect tan.

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After Care: A Guide to Prolonging the Perfect Sunless Tan

• Composure: This is the most important tool that you will need because you need to convey confidence to your clients that you will be able to competently give them the best airbrush tan possible.

• Safety: Have on hand things such as eye wear, masks, disposable undergarments, nose plugs, etc. so that you can ensure that your client will not inhale, ingest or internalize in any way the tanning solution.

• Pre-Spray: Prior to applying the tanning solution itself, there are pre-spray solutions available that act as PH balancers. Pre-spraying your client will even out the acidity of the skin and the spray will also act as a mild exfoliant for the daily buildup of natural residue and oils.

• Barrier Creams: Application of a quality barrier cream to areas such as the bottom of the feet, excessively dry areas, palms, etc. is highly important to give the most even airbrush tan. In addition, Vaseline, or an equivalent, needs to be used on the lips as a protectant to the delicate skin.

• The Basic Steps: An airbrush gun should always stay around 6 inches away from the body unless you are contouring but that is a more technical skill that can only be accomplished with training and much practice. The normal spraying process should be broken down into steps, starting with the neck and ending with the face. The exact steps are given in any quality certification course.

When you are giving your client a tan through the use of airbrush, you will understand quickly that you need skill in determining the differing areas of the body and how the spray should be applied to each area. As an example, to apply the solution evenly to the buttocks, your client will need to lean forward and go into a light squatting position to get rid of the crease between the legs and the buttocks. In addition, you will also have to learn the techniques involved with applying the solution to the hands and feet. For example, for the hands the client needs to position their hands and fingers like they were grasping a tennis ball. When spraying the hand, the top needs to be sprayed normally but the sides and fingers of the hand needs to get a lighter misting for a natural-like fade.

As you can see, providing for the perfect airbrush tan is more complicated than just picking up a spray gun and spraying. Besides safety concerns, this is one of the reasons why it is imperative that you have proper certification and ongoing technical study. A thorough knowledge of anatomy and how to apply the spray properly is absolutely essential to providing a perfect tan that looks exceedingly natural.

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Your Step by Step Guide to Airbrush Tanning

Many people who come into a tanning salon do not know what their skin type is so it is your responsibility to recognize skin types on sight so that you can use the proper sunless tanning spray.

Skin type 1 people, who are perfect for 5% – 8% DHA solution, are those who have very white skin. These people will tan little or not at all. In addition, they always burn easily, severely and then peel. Type 1s most often have extremely fair skin and are light red-heads with blue eyes and freckles.

Skin type 2 people, who are also perfect for 5% to 8% DHA solution, are those who tan minimally or lightly and can burn excessively with painful results as well as peel. This skin type usually comes into play with people that have fair skin, hazel or blue eyes and darker red or blond hair.

Skin type 3 people, who are perfect for up to 10% DHA solution, are those with European-type skin. These people have average Caucasian skin tones and they burn moderately as well as gain tans that are average in color.

Skin type 4 people, who are also perfect for up to 10% DHA solution but can use up to 15% solutions, are typically of Mediterranean, Hispanic and Asian descent. These people have a tan or brownish skin color typically with dark-brown hair and dark eyes whose unexposed skin is either light brown or white. These people will burn minimally and tan easily and increasingly with each exposure. These people also exhibit what is called an IPD reaction, or immediate pigment darkening, when exposed to the tanning solution or UV rays.

Type 5 people are those that can use up to 15% DHA easily, without any unwanted orange effects. These people will rarely burn and they have the ability to tan substantially as well as exhibit high IPD reactions. Usually these are brown-skinned people whose unexposed skin is brown in color. They are usually of East Indian, Hispanic and Native American descent.

Type 6 people do not really need to use a sunless tanning spray. This is because they are usually persons with black or extremely dark brown skin, such as Africans, African Americans, Australian Aborigines and South Indian Aborigines. They hardly ever burn and they tan profusely, if a tan shows up at all. They exhibit complete IPD reaction but are still subject to skin cancers and peeling with extreme exposure to UV light.

Comprehensive skin typing is a must when you want to apply the perfect sunless tanning spray solution. These solutions contain different concentrations of DHA and, if the wrong one is applied, has the ability to produce the wrong tan tone. This is why learning how to skin type your clients on sight is extremely important.

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Skin Typing Your Sunless Tanning Experience

Even though DHA has been used in sunless self tanning products since the early 1960s, it did not really catch on until the 1980s when consumers became concerned over damage associated with UV tanning options. In the late 1970s though, the US FDA added DHA permanently to their list of approved cosmetic, or non-ingested, ingredients. DHA is considered by dermatologists to be the most effective sun-free tanning additive.

Since becoming just about a staple with actors and others in the lime-light, self tanning has become one of the more popular ways of achieving that sun-kissed glow that is now equated with leisure and health. Sunless products contain DHA in concentrations ranging from 1% to 15%. Almost all drugstore products contain upwards of 5% DHA while professional products contain from 5% to 15% DHA. These percentages correspond to the coloration medium from light to dark. Lighter products, which contains usually up to 7% DHA, can require multiple coats, except on extremely fair skin, to produce the desired tan color. Darker products, up to 15% DHA, produce tans that are dark with only one application. Darker products though, are more prone to off-color tones such as the orange effect or unevenness and streaking. The artificial tan produced usually takes 2 to 4 hours to make an appearance on the skin’s surface and can take from 24 to 72 hours to complete the darkening process, depending on the formulation of the solution.

Once the reaction of the sugars in DHA with the upper-most layer of the epidermis is complete, the tan will not wash off or sweat away. The tan will thereafter gradually fade over 3 to 10 days, according to the skin’s natural sloughing process, which can take up to 30 days. Unfortunately, prolonged water submersion, especially in chlorinated water, and purposeful exfoliation can lighten the tan, as these are major contributing factors to increasing dead skin cell which is what is tanned.

Professionally applied products include spray tanning booths, through airbrushing as well as hand-applied wipes, mousses, gels and lotions.

DHA has been found to not damage the skin and is considered a safe alternative to tanning. Contact dermatitis, or an allergic reaction to DHA itself, is rarely reported. Most sensitivity cases are due to other inactive ingredients in the product, such as preservatives, fragrances, dyes or plant extracts. Unfortunately, studies have also found that DHA, within the first 24 hours of application, causes the skin to be especially susceptible to free-radical damage from sunlight. Therefore, your clients need to be advised to stay away from exposure to the sun completely within the first day.

Sunless or self tanning products, at least the quality ones, contain the active ingredient DHA. DHA has been found to be the safest alternative to UV tanning and is endorsed by the FDA and dermatologists.

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How DHA in Self Tanning Products Work With the Skin

Since there are so many different sunless tanning lotions available, you need to keep a wide range of stock on hand that has different concentrations of DHA in them. These concentrations vary widely from 5% to 15%. The higher the concentration, the fewer amounts of times these lotions need to be applied to get the desired color of tan but, unless you are skilled, the higher concentrations can also result in streaking or uneven skin tone. In addition, there are lotions that though more expensive, contain a combination of DHA and Erythrulose as active ingredients. Erythrulose is a slower acting ingredient that, when mixed with DHA, provides for a more even tan with less coats.

When you offer sun-free tanning services through lotions, there are a multitude of benefits involved for both you and the customer. For instance, you don’t need technical skill to apply sunless tanning lotions to your clients. On the other hand though, you do need practice the skill, meaning that you need to perfect your technique so that you will be able to apply the lotion evenly each and every time. In addition, your clients will benefit from you applying these lotions because you will be able to reach the areas on their body that they would otherwise have a problem with.

Unlike the disastrous lotions in the 60s though, the lotions available today have very few of the unwanted side-effects such as orange colored splotches, palm discoloration, etc. if they are applied correctly. In addition, because you don’t want to have the dreaded palm coloring problem that these lotions can potentially give, it is imperative that you always wear gloves, particularly form-fitting ones, during the application process.

Another reason why you need to have a varying stock of these lotions on hand is that one lotion may not work the same on one person as it does another. You will also need to let your clients know this. If they come in saying their friend used a particular brand and they want to use the same, let them know that it may work differently for them and can even cause uneven coloring and such. Assure them that everyone’s skin is different and reacts differently to all of the ingredients, both the active and inactive ingredients combined.

When you include services for sunless tanning lotions in your business, there are a few considerations that you have to keep in mind. First, one type lotion doesn’t fit all people. The ingredients can react differently with differing skin types. In addition, there are varying products available with different concentrations of DHA and Erythrulose in them to produce gradual up to instant tans. Be careful of which one you choose, follow your instinct and your client’s skin type to choose the best possible one for them.

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Sunless Tanning Lotions: They’re All Not Created Equal

In the past, you had to lie out in the sun and literally bake. Baking has been found to be completely unhealthy for the skin and can cause a myriad of problems.

When it comes to health benefits, the best reason to use products for sunless tanning is that it dramatically reduces your risk of getting sun cancer. In addition, none of us want to grow old gracefully; we all want to fight it for as long as possible.

One of the best ways to avoid some of the detrimental aspects of growing old is to stay out of the sun. In fact, UV rays that can be found in sunlight and in tanning beds will dehydrate, thin and wrinkle your skin.

UV also promotes skin sagging, age spots, skin blotchiness, increased freckles, cataracts and other eye disorders as well as lowers your Vitamin C.

Convenience wise, sunless tanning products are appealing to more and more people every day. Just a few decades ago, a tan on someone was thought to be a sign of poverty.

Today though, a tan is seen as the standard of leisure. When you use these products you will receive many convenience benefits. They, first of all, are the least expensive way of tanning.

Many bottles of tanning lotion that you can purchase are 1/5 the cost of tanning bed treatments and they will give you a tan faster than tanning by tanning bed or by the sun.

You can also go so far as to apply the product so that you don’t have any tan line. Or, you can apply the tan to a specific area if you wish. In addition, it can be applied anytime.

Sunless tanning products are also ideal for those who burn extremely easily or those who don’t tan easily. Therefore, one easy step is all you will need to add color and protection to the palest of skin.

Another advantage is that mistakes are only temporary. Have you ever lain out in the sun and baked for too long on one side? You could never really get an even tan.

In addition, in a tanning bed, if a mistake happens you have to contend with it for a long time. When you use a sunless product, though, the chemicals, which are primarily plant-derived, react with only the dead skin cells, which are naturally sloughed off the body around every 30 days.

With the increasing popularity of sunless tanning, businesses have been manufacturing a wide range of performance enhancing sunless tanners. Gradual daily tanners have become popular and almost every lotion out there has some sort of technology in them that helps you achieve a streak-free tan.

Using sunless tanning products provides you with many health as well as convenience benefits. If you have a hard time sunbathing, you can be assured a proper tan through the use of these products. In addition, you will avoid the risk of skin cancer and still have that healthy sun-kissed glow.

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The Benefits of Using Sunless Tanning Products

Bronzing of the skin using traditional methods during pregnancy is one of the most difficult decisions an expectant mother has to make but does she have to give up getting sun altogether, absolutely not.

Expectant mothers need Vitamin D in their diets and a small amount of sun, combined with pregnancy vitamins prescribed by her OB/Gyn. All which goes a long way to ensure the baby grows properly while in the womb.

Here’s the problem, though. OB/Gyn’s will want an expectant mother to avoid any activity during the first three months that raises her body’s temperature considerably, such as using hot tubs, tanning beds, saunas, etc. This is because overheating has been found to be associated with malformations of the spine in a baby.

In fact, a few studies have found that there’s a link between folic acid deficiency and excessive UV rays. Folic acid prevents such things as spina bifida, a neural tube defect.

In the ensuing trimesters though, an expectant mother, according to many OB/Gyn’s can have a few short minutes (no more than 10 at the most) laying out in the sun or in a tanning bed as long as she is preventing restricted blood flow by laying on her side or standing up.

During pregnancy, it has been found that a woman’s skin is more likely to burn, so it’s been recommended by the FDA that expectant mothers make adjustments to time spent in the sun or in a tanning bed.

This is dependent on her skin type, burn tendency, dehydration tendency, etc. If a tanning bed is extremely important to her, it must be in reputable salons that will require a doctor’s note before sessions.

In addition, sun as well as tanning beds might make an expectant mother likely to get chloasma, a condition where dark splotches develop on the face during pregnancy. In effect, it could be a good idea to avoid the beach or the tanning bed altogether and stick with a sunless tan product.

Achieving the perfect sunless tan may be the best option. There are fewer risks associated with sunless tanning, primarily because the ingredients in sprays, lotions and creams generally do not penetrate the skin.

These sunless tanning options only react with the outer layer of the skin cells. In fact, the FDA has been approving products with DHA (dihydroxyacetone) since 1960 and problems associated with birth defects have never been recorded.

As usual though, there always is a “but” when it comes to being pregnant. Since an expectant mother’s skin can be more sensitive to everything, even experienced sunless tanners should spot-test in an inconspicuous area because irritation can result, even with the same exact brand which she’s always used.

In conclusion, getting a sunless tan seems to be the safest way for an expectant mother to get that sun-kissed glow than by going to a tanning bed or baking out in the sun.

UV rays have been associated with many problems such as folic acid depletion and overheating that may be associated with spinal malformations.

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Sunless Tan Safety Measures for Pregnant Women

The best options include those that are FDA approved as food grade or pharmaceutical grade, which provide a higher quality over cosmetic grade.

You should read the labels before buying any product but if you are following the trend of the health conscious, these are some of the healthier ingredients that you can look for:

• Water that is “de-ionized” or “de-mineralized.” This means that mineral ions have been removed, which is the prime ingredient in hard water.

• Grape Seed Oil is a moisturizer. It has low viscosity and is easy for the skin to absorb.

• Avocado Oil sooths as well as softens the skin. There are many uses for it including superior moisturizing, healing scar tissue, helping to heal sun damaged skin as well as reducing age spots.

• Shea Butter and Jojoba Seed Oil are both moisturizers and when used in sunless tanning products, they heal the skin with emollients that are similar to the skin’s natural secretion of your sebaceous glands.

• Aloe Leaf Juice is not just used as a moisturizer and healer of the skin but it is also used as a preservative in many products for sunless tanning.

• Good sunless tanning products also contain vitamins such as A, C, D and E, which of course, are all beneficial to the skin.

• Silk Amino Acid can also be found in some products, though not many. This acid is a moisture barrier called a humectant and an anti-oxidant. Anti-oxidants are perfect for slowing premature aging of the skin.

• Providing the tanning product with solubility and stability is Capric/Capryllic Triglycerides. It is also a moisture barrier, thickener and moisturizer.

• A particularly helpful ingredient for many carrying agents in products for sunless tanning is Cetearyl Alcohol. In addition, it is a thickener, emulsifier and emollient.

• Polysorbate 20 makes the tanning lotion very easy to apply because it is a non-ionic surfactant.

• Glyceryl Monosterate occurs naturally in your body. It is a by-product of the breakdown of fats.

• A particularly helpful moisturizing agent, Sorbitol, attracts and holds water molecules. It is an alcohol that is found naturally in pears, plums, grapes and berries.

• Silicone provides elasticity and strength to your fingernails, hair and skin as well as structural strength to the molecules in your body. As a general rule, the more silicone there is, the healthier the tissues in your skin become.

• One ingredient that is particularly overlooked is Allantoin. It provides a keratolyic effect, which protects against the production of excess skin through lesions and warts.

• Propylene Glycol is a moisture barrier, wetting agent, surfactant as well as a moisturizer. It easily penetrates the skin to help make it smooth and velvety soft.

It will be nearly impossible to find all of these ingredients in sunless tanning products but the more there are, the better off you’ll be.

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The Best Ingredients for Sunless Tanning Products

Whatever your reason is to want to get a fake tan, you will find that there are an immense amount of products out there extolling their benefits, and downgrading their drawbacks.

Almost all tanning sprays will do the basics, such as provide for even coverage with a minimal amount of streaking, but there are differences in the chemical ingredients as well as the composition of the spray in question that may cause allergic reactions on one person and work absolutely beautifully on another.

Whenever you choose a spray tan product, whether to use it yourself or in a business setting, you need to make sure you have the best product for each skin type. You can generally find guides all over the place on the Internet and many tanning salons will probably help you out with choosing them.

In addition, you need to pick quality over quantity. This may end up being more expensive but you want your clients to come back, right? Why not get them the absolute best?

Most of the best products will have all-natural ingredients with absolutely no alcohol. Now, there is one ingredient called Cetearyl Alcohol that is beneficial to the skin as an emollient because traditional alcohols will dry out the skin.

Many people complain about the smell of the reaction of DHA and the dead skin cells. Many spray tan products will therefore include perfuming agents that can actually be harmful to the skin and cause allergic reactions.

When you are choosing products, especially for a business, make sure you have a selection on hand because all skin is different. In fact, it’s even been found that identical twins have different skin compositions and each can be allergic to different things.

One spray product may turn one person’s skin a deep, beautiful brown while on another their skin turns an ugly orange. Many of the products that say they will give you a deep dark tan contain an immense amount of DHA, which has the potential of turning very pale skin into pumpkin colored skin.

In effect, the skin will look odd.

Something else you should look for is how complicated the directions are. If you are new to the process, do some research or make sure that you understand fully the procedure as well as the before and after care associated with the product.

In addition, you want to have the best quality spray tanning equipment available. For self-tanning, there are many products that include cheap looking hand held sprayers. If they look cheap, more than likely they are cheap and will leak and leave streaks.

If you are in business, shop around. You will pay more for the equipment but quality is the word of the day when it comes to giving your customers the absolute best. A little bit of investment will go a long way.

There are so many options available when going for spray tanning products, all the way from brands of sprays to types of equipment. Just remember, quality is always better than quantity.

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Types of Spray Tan Products

These products include sunless tanning sprays and lotions, cosmetic bronzers, tanning accelerators and tanning pills. Bronzers give immediate results, while sprays and lotions can take up to 24 hours to complete the chemical reaction and pills as well as tanning accelerators can take weeks to see the full effect.

Bronzers are cosmetic in nature and are easily removed with water and soap. These come in lotions, creams and powders that give immediate results, just like make-up. The tint in bronzers only last as long as your next shower and, except in extreme allergic reactions, they do not stain your skin.

Sunless tanning products that are the most effective include sprays and lotions (including foams, gels and such) that contain DHA, which is a colorless sugar that chemically reacts with the upper-most layer of the epidermis’ skin cells.

As this chemical reaction occurs, the color of the skin changes and darkens. The tan these products produce will fade gradually and a re-application will be needed after no more than 10 days.

This is because dead skin cells are always being sloughed off and, in fact, a completely new layer of skin is visible within 30 to 45 days.

Pills used for tanning contain a pigment called canthaxanthin, which has been approved by the FDA as a pigment additive in food. Used as a food additive, canthaxanthin is only used in very small amounts but as a tanning pill, an extremely large amount of the pigment has to be ingested to affect the color of the skin.

A horrible side effect is that it will also change the color of your internal organs and other side effects, such as canthaxanthin retinopathy (yellow deposits forming on the eye’s retina) and hepatitis can result.

Tanning accelerators are sunless tanning products which come in pills or lotions that usually contain tyrosine, an amino acid. Tyrosine has been found to increase melanin formation but there may be potentially harmful side effects of using large amounts of the drug.

All products related to sunless tanning do have the potential to cause allergic reactions to the skin. Since DHA is a naturally derived sugar, most times allergic reactions are caused by the inactive ingredients.

A good way to ensure the least amount of allergic reactions as possible is to use a sunless tanner with the least synthetic ingredients. In addition, if you’ve found in the past that you are allergic to a specific type of ingredient, let’s say in your make-up, you will be allergic to it in a sunless tanner.

Today, there are a veritable plethora of sunless tanning products available that all mostly do the same thing, give you a tan, which is thoroughly dependent upon the quality of the product and the quality of the application.

Lotions, creams and sprays seem to be the best in producing that semi-permanent tan that many women have come to love.

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How Self Tan Works on the Skin