Tanning salons inject color, style into pale, bland season

Long-time Ann Arbor resident Carrie Pierson rolled down the waist of her faded jeans exclaiming, "Look at this @#%* tan! It's awesome."

Pierson is one of many locals who seem unusually bronzed for this time of year. These tanned souls haven't all escaped to faraway and exotic sands to catch some rays - rather they have flocked to one of the many local tanning salons downtown.

As you may have guessed, prime-time tanning season has arrived as students and locals pour into salons to escape the winter blahs and gear up for spring break. Various tanners and salon employees said winter is the busiest time of year for a number of reasons. They report tanning can be therapeutic for seasonal depression, Vitamin D deficiency, skin disorders, acne and even self-esteem.

State Street Beach tanning employee and customer Chau Phan explains, "Maybe it's psychological. People feel more confident when they are tan .... It's nice to feel warm and glow after."

LOUIS BROWN/Daily Tanning booths, such as this one, make sure that students are simply moments away from a darker complexion.

Patti Chase, an employee at Tanfastic on Main Street, has been in the tanning business for 11 years and a customer for 20. She said she agrees that people will tan for just about any reason ranging from a date, to a formal to going home for the holidays.

While some salons such as State Street Beach and South University Avenue's Supertans rely mainly on students for business, others like Tanfastic and Southern Exposure have a wide range of clientele. Kim Barr, manager of Southern Exposure on South University Avenue, has served "young, old, even people in their '60's and '70's."

Although people of all ages come to tan, all of the salons admit that much of their business comes from females. Nevertheless, there are some male customers. "Girls like dark-skinned guys better and I'm going to Acapulco and I don't want to be pale," said one male LSA sophomore, who wished to remain anonymous. "The Michigan winter did a number on my color!"

In order to accommodate the influx of students who share this sophomore's winter woes, most salons advertise various packages to encourage customers to continue to work on their tans. Some locations slash prices, others offer multi-session packages while still others entice first-time customers with hefty discounts.

The services around town vary somewhat as well. At State Street Beach, you will find tanning beds surrounded by beach-inspired artwork and music. Supertans also offers tanning beds as well as "hex's," which have twice the amount of bulbs as a regular tanning bed, thereby cutting tanning time in half.

Tanfastic has a wider selection of 32-lamp super beds as well as their own set of hex's. They also offer music.

While there are few major differences between the services available in different tanning salons, Southern Exposure is the only salon in Ann Arbor to offer high-pressure tanning.

Barr said high-pressure tanning is much safer and faster than traditional tanning techniques. High-pressure tanning uses a filter to eliminate harmful UVB rays so there is no chance of burning and it is less damaging to your skin, Barr explained. In addition, Barr claims, "After the first visit you'll see tan lines. There's a major difference and the tan lasts for about one month."

Even more impressive, Barr said, is that one visit in a high-pressure salon is equivalent to eight or 10 visits in a regular tanning bed.

Pierson, a regular customer at Southern Exposure, noticed a significant tan after just three visits and is "very satisfied." In fact, customers at most of the salons seemed quite satisfied with their tans.

Therefore, it's not surprising that these salons have a large number of regular customers. On average, regulars go tanning one to three times a week at State Street Beach, Supertans and Tanfastic. Regulars also flock to Southern Exposure about twice a month, employees say.

So why are people tanning so often despite the much-publicized health risks? Surprisingly, many employees and customers believe that the health risks are minimal or non-existent. Phan claims that there are no scientifically proven health risks because "it's hard to eliminate other factors (that could cause health problems)." Besides, she claims that "everyone has sun."

Chase rationalizes her 20 years of tanning as not harmful as well. "I never over-expose myself so I'm not at risk. The sun is the source of all life so it's very beneficial."

The sun is not as beneficial as some people may think, said nationally renowned researcher Vincent DeLeo, a professor of dermatology at Columbia University. DeLeo has found that tanning-bed light "can burn both skin and eyes, alter immune system function, cause skin to age prematurely and produce non-melanoma skin cancers and ... 'sun poisoning.' It may even be related to melanoma induction growth."

So while the idea of achieving a golden brown hue in the midst of winter may sound appealing, the message from the experts: Proceed with caution.

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