Article: Tanning salons offer a variety of packages, specials, prices, products and use a variety of tanning beds, making it difficult to know which salon to choose if you don’t have a personal recommendation. Here are a few things to look for when deciding.  Ask for a detailed breakdown of their pricing before any specials, so you can see if you can afford their services when the special is no longer offered. Think about convenience factors, such as how close it is to your home or work, whether or not you have to schedule appointments or if your gym already has tanning beds. Ask if they use high-efficiency bulbs and how often they are changed. Ask if you can see the beds to get a look at how well maintained they appear. Look around – is everything spick and span? Do you see employees going in and out of the booths cleaning beds between customers? If the reception area is dirty, for instance, that’s probably not a good sign. Talk with the staff. Well-trained professionals should help you determine your skin type, which they’ll use to create a tanning schedule so you tan fairly quickly but without getting scorched. Getting a base tan will occur with consistent and incremental increases in tanning sessions, tanning times and tanning bed levels. This will all be determined by the schedule you’ve created with the salon you’ve selected. A general rule of thumb is that at first you will only tan every 2-4 days for about 5 -7 minutes and then build from there. Don’t assume that if you have light skin you just need to tan longer. The likely result of doing this will be a bad burn. Salons will try to sell you all kinds of lotions designed to make you tan faster and darker, to make your tan last longer and so forth. Many of these lotions – accelerators, maximizers, bronzers, intensifiers – are quite expensive and reviews on how well they work are mixed. Go online and see what others have to say.  If you decide to experiment, try one at a time. If you use more than one, and you find you’re getting the results you hoped to achieve, you won’t know which lotion was responsible. Trying one at a time, then, is the less expensive way to go. They can also often be purchased much less expensively online than in the salons. Wait to shower if you use a bronzing lotion. After you tan in a tanning bed, wait 3-4 hours before you take a shower if you use a bronzing lotion that you find is working for you. Also, it is a myth that showering after using a tanning bed will somehow wash away your tan. It won’t. Just as with tanning outside, tanning beds expose your skin to UV rays. If you decide to use a tanning lotion, see if it has SPF protection and a factor of at least 15. If not, get and apply one 20-30 minutes before you bed in the bed. Some people prefer to go nude, while others decide to wear the bathing suit they plan to wear in the summer. Either is fine.  Using different bathing suits, however, will leave your tan uneven, and perhaps even with a variety of tan lines jig-jagging across your body. You will also want to wear the goggles they provide to protect your eyes, or purchase your own. Closing your eyes or putting a towel over them won’t protect them from UV rays, which can cause significant damage to your retinas. Also, to avoid raccoon eyes, move the goggles around on your eyes throughout each tanning session. Like tanning in the sun, always make sure you exfoliate prior to tanning in a tanning bed or booth. Moisturize after exfoliation as well. Just as you would when laying outside in the sun, you want to adjust your body so that all parts are being exposed to the light for about the same amount of time. In a tanning bed, you don’t have to flip from front to back because the lights are both above and below you, and to one degree or another around you. So twist in different directions occasionally. Think about the places where your body is bent (like in the crook of your arms or at the base of your neck), or where your skin is bunching up. If you don’t readjust often enough, this will create tanning wrinkles. Once your base tan is established, you will likely drop to tanning just 2 days per week. A good salon won’t try to convince you that you need more than that. Also, continue your regimen of exfoliating, moisturizing and drinking plenty of fluids.

What is a summary?
Choose a good tanning salon. Decide how to build your base tan. Consider using special lotions. Wear sunscreen. Decide what or what not to wear in the bed. Prep your skin before tanning. Move around in the bed. Maintain your base tan.