A teen tanning ban has been upheld in Germany after tanning salon owners complained. There was an appeal by a 17 year old girl who claimed that the ban infringed on her rights, but the court denied the appeal and upheld the ban on the grounds of public safety. The bans seem to be holding up in other parts of the world. Especially Europe and Canada.
Legislation is being introduced in Utah for a teen ban as well. The editorial in the link is definitely against the measure, stating that it creates the problem of government getting into people’s lives. We’ll see how that legislation fares.
Also, for an alternate look at the tan tax, here’s an article that talks about how it is faring over the past year. According to the article, about a quarter of salon owners experienced a loss in business, while the rest of them didn’t seem to have too serious of problems. Many business absorbed the costs themselves, or shared the costs with the customer, while the rest passed the costs on to the customer. Many customers were against the tax, but in the end didn’t mind paying it to tan. Of course, the government hasn’t collected nearly as much revenue as originally projected, calling into question the effectiveness of the tax.
Businesses everywhere were hit hard by the recession; many are still struggling. The tanning industry has especially felt the effects of the weak economy, considering all the hits it has taken in recent legislation. First it was the tan tax, now it is legislators around the world considering age-specific tanning bans.
So how are tanning businesses getting by? Many salon owners have gotten creative, adding services they didn’t offer before and trying new marketing techniques.
Spray tanning is getting very popular very fast, and many tanning owners are jumping on board and are adapting spray tanning services of their own to supplement their incomes. One salon owner offers his advice on starting a spray tanning service and his take on the industry is optimistic and encouraging. Definitely worth a read.
Other owners are offering other services like red light therapy, and even body wraps in order to offer more variety for their customers. Who knows, you might find a new niche to take advantage of; it never hurts to get creative. Think about what the customer wants: to look good and feel good. Tanning helps your customers achieve a favorable body image for your customers, and in turn they feel good about that, while enjoying some endorphins along the way. Think about what you can do to supplement that.
Other salons are engaging the community. This salon for example is offering free tans for anyone who brings in canned goods. Charity drives like this may not get you as much revenue in the short run, but they also build rapport with the community and bring in more customers, which not only being good in itself, could get you more customers and revenue over time.
Salon owners everywhere are doing their best to make things work. It takes some creativity and perseverance, but owners are definitely making it happen.
Well, this can often happen when one state starts a legal precedent: to put it simply, other states are now considering the teen tanning ban.
Last Sunday, governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that banned anyone under 18 from using a tanning bed. Now other states, specifically Ohio, New York, Illinois and Rhode Island are considering a similar bill. Naturally there are all sorts of opinions for and against the possible measure, and there are definitely some interesting perspectives represented in the above-linked article.
This is definitely troubling news for many tanning businesses that depend on a portion of these younger tanners for their income. However there are other salon owners that are coming to terms with the new constraints and are quietly rethinking their business strategies and considering other means of income, such as spray tanning (especially for the younger customers) and red light therapy to make up for lost income. It will be interesting to see what business owners come up with. Some associations, such as the ITA will most likely fight the bills, as they have with the tanning tax, but the tanning tax is still active too, so it would be best to plan on the bans being around for a while if you are in one of the mentioned states (assuming the bills to ban teen tanning are passed).
Speaking of the tanning tax, reports are showing that it is bringing in less income than projected, which was what many opponents predicted when the tax was announced. It looks like the tax is going to bring in around 70 to 75 million in 2011, which is going to fall short of the projected 200 million. Several reasons were given for the shortfall, such as an abrupt announcement of the tax and its subsequent hasty implementation, as well as the confusing nature of its exact application.
Should’ve gone with the botax!
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.
Not sure if this product has reached the States yet or not, but if you do come across something like this, you might want to consider holding off on purchase.
There’s an interesting fad that is going on in the UK (and from the looks of it is about to fizzle out) that involves snorting some type of mysterious nasal spray that is supposed to give the user a tanned skin tone. The product is called Ubertan and has been banned from being sold in the UK, though its not illegal to use it apparently. There’s been a number of complaints, with some people even ending up in the hospital with dizziness and racing hearts and the like. Apparently the product hasn’t been rigorously tested to meet health guidelines and can have unpredictable effects on certain people.
The whole thing looks like some sort of fraud. The ingredients are mysterious, there’s not a whole lot of information about how the product works, the owner of the company has been hard to contact and everything looks very dubious.
We know there are lots of exciting new products out there to help get that perfect bronzed skin, and there are plenty of excited customers out there who really feel a boost to their self-esteem when they have that tanned body they want. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to approach a snortable fake-tan product with caution.
