The 2011 Smart Tan Downtown indoor tanning industry convention is coming up next month! The convention is going to be held in Nashville, Tennessee again from October 14th to the 16th. Always an exciting event, this year’s Smart Tan convention is going to have all sorts of useful seminars such as on benefits of vitamin D and UV light, political and grassroots advocacy, business advice, marketing tactics, growing profits, science of sunlight, redlight therapy, spray tanning, International Tanning Association activities, and more.
There’s definitely going to be alot of information and tools available to help grow your business and be successful. There will definitely be plenty of great social opportunities as well with music and conferences and gatherings and all that.
Definitely a great place to be if you want to see where the industry is going and find connections and figure out what direction to take your business next. We highly recommend it.
Here is a link to the event and a schedule if you are interested!
And while we are on the subject on Smart Tan, here are a few links to some good articles on their site.
Here is an article about sun light and another one about vitamin D. Enjoy!
The tanning debate continues on with one group stressing the benefits of vitamin D and another group stressing the dangers of UV rays. We’ve talked about these issues before, and the arguments are constantly coming up. Definitely a big issue having to do with the tanning industry.
Here is a well-balanced article that tackles the issue and lays out the pros and cons of both tanning and sunscreen. The article definitely seems favorable to getting some rays here and there, as it mentions that we are seeing new breakouts of vitamin D deficiencies that could be very costly to our health.
So again, we have two main sides to the debate. One side stresses that we need sun and the vitamin D that comes with the UV and then the other side stresses that UV rays are carcinogenic and that we should avoid them at all costs.
In the end, moderation is the answer. We don’t want to fry in the sun all day – this leads to sunburns and possibly other future complications such as skin cancer. But we also don’t want to avoid the sun all day either. We’ve lived with the sun for a long time and there’s no reason to abandon it now. A fearmongering sunscare message is not going to get us anywhere except perhaps a low vitamin D level.
After all, UV rays give us our much needed vitamin D and even fight depression. Knowing to moderate and live a healthy life is key to a long and happy life.
Yeah, we’ve suspected this for a while, but now more and more studies are showing that stress can have a dramatic effect on your body, your skin being an example.
As these articles state, stress responses can result in a release of such hormones as cortisol, which produces more oil and can make you more prone to acne. Stress can also trigger extreme immune responses and other conditions that can lead to psoriasis or other such disorders. Stress can also trigger such disorders as eczema, hives, rosacea, and more.
Consider when dermatologists send their patients to tanning facilities to treat certain skin conditions such as acne and psoriasis. Sure, UV rays can have different effects on these skin conditions and improve them, but we also understand that tanning can result in the release of endorphins and can be relaxing and stress reducing, so maybe this is part of it as well? If so, yet another reason to advocate tanning: stress reduction! With reduced stress, you can help alleviate all sorts of symptoms such as intestinal problems, acne, psoriasis, sleep problems, and more! Definitely a strong sell.
Other ways to lower stress: antidepressants, cognitive therapy, meditation, yoga, breathing excercises, and etc. Granted, we are living in stressful times, so we aren’t always going to be stressfree, but it is worth doing what we can. Yet another way to help out your customers!
There is an interesting ABC article up about an early-phase implant that is being used to treat a man with a rare skin disease that leaves him extremely sensitive to sunlight and certain forms of artificial light.
The man, who has a rare skin disease called “EPP” (erythropoietic protoporphyria) can’t be exposed to sunlight even for a short amount of time or his skin will become red and burn and become inflamed. But thanks to a new implant, which is in the form of a drug that is injected, the man can enjoy a normal life in the sun.
How does this happen? Well the drug stimulates melanin production, which helps protect him against the sunlight. This results in an actual drug-induced tan!
Of course, the drug is still in its testing stages, and not a lot is known about it. Of course it is not going to be widely used yet, except for extreme cases such as mentioned above. But still something to think about.
There are definitely fascinating technological advances happening everyday.
One industry writer makes a good point. As the tanning debate continues, more and more tanning businesses are becoming vulnerable to litigation when it comes to the perceived effects of tanning.
While the tanning industry asserts that a moderate amount of UV light is good for you, there are others that want to argue that UV light is dangerous whatever the case. While this debate hasn’t been resolved with scientific certainty (you know of course what our position is!), there will still be customers that will seek lawsuits if they believe they have been harmed in any way by a tanning bed.
What the writer adds is that though he in no way seeks to take a definite position in the article, he sees many cases of litigation where customers argue they were not warned by the tanning salon about possible health dangers.
To get to the point, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at the sample consent form he posted and think about how to best inform your customers. If you warn your customers about potential health risks (whether it is scientifically proven or not) you are less vulnerable to lawsuit. It is a simple way to protect your business.
