Basics Of A Tanning Bed

Are you looking for a tanning bed for your home? Are you wondering how an indoor tanning salon makes money? Here are some things to consider in your quest for the right tanning salon or home tanning bed...

• Tanning beds range in size and power. You can find cheap tanning beds with a total of 20 bulbs, or you can find a tanning bed with as many as 60. You can even find a tanning bed with high pressure lamps. These are exceptionally power lamps that only experienced tanners use to get a good fast tan.
  


• Tanning beds with 20-26 bulbs are for people who just want to work on their base tan. Or, it's for people who just enjoy getting some UV and get and enjoy a nice break. UV can have benefits in small doses. These beds usually have a maximum tan time of 15-20 minutes.
  


• For the person looking for a better quality tan, look for beds with 32 + bulbs are the way to go. You can even start here if you are willing to spend the extra cash, but you should keep your first tanning sessions to 4-6 minutes depending on your skin type.


• Indoor tanning lotion is important for building your tan. Even though quality indoor tanning lotion is expensive, it can actually help you save money. Quality lotions help you build your base tan, execrate the tanning results, and makes you tan last longer. Don't use cheap outdoor or indoor tanning lotions. You are wasting your time. See our article on indoor tanning lotions.

Here are some things to consider, and what many tanning salon owners don't want you to know. Some manufacturers don't want you to know them either!

If you like a particular tanning bed and you see that they have fairly high watt bulbs (the higher the wattage, the more powerful the bulbs can be), be sure that the tanning be actually has the right mechanics behind it to product the full power of the bulbs. Some salon owners will claim they have 140 watt bulbs in a lower level tanning bed to compete with another salon, for example, that may have newer beds with true 140 bulb beds. But the tanning machine may only be able to get 120 watts out of the bulb!

Secondly, some salon owners will buy cheap beds with fewer bulbs, and even though these bulbs may put out 140 or more watts, these bulbs may be spread
farther apart, and this can result in a Zebra tan. A good quality tanning bed will have the bulbs fairly close together, and get the most wattage out of the bulb. These days 32 lamp beds are the norm for Level 1 tanning beds. 10 years ago 26 was the norm, and there are 26 bulbs (Sun Ergoline).

A dirty trick that some bed manufacturers are pulling off is putting what appear to be 160 watt bulbs in their beds, but the bed actually is only getting 140 out of them (as I explained above). But they are not telling the salon owner this (this is my opinion based upon a conversation with a bulb sales rep so I can't substantiate it).

Here are a couple more dirty tricks to look out for...

• Salon owners, in order to save money from hanging bulbs on their tanning beds will change just half of the bulbs on a bed, and claim that all of them were 'just changed'.
  


• Another trick is they will put boxes out in the lobby and in the halls that contain 'new bulbs' and experienced tanners will see them and get excited
  about tanning in a fresh bed and tell their friends. But they won't actually change them for some time.
  


• And lastly, the best beds have more UVA than UVB. That's because UVA penetrates deeper into your skin, giving you a better quality tan that last longer. UVB is the UV that generally gets the top layer of your skin and can burn it. This is usually what causes the pink tint or burn. But a lot of tanners think that getting pink or burning a little bit means that they are getting results from a bed. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Not only are you damaging your skin, you are ruining your tan. But salon owners take advantage of this and sometime put more UVA bulbs in a bed that should have more UVB so that it 'appears' like you are getting results (they also make it a more 'hot' experience which plays into the perception). UVA bulbs can be cheaper, so that is another reason salon owners will do this.

Hopefully this enlightened you to some tanning salon and tanning industry knowledge that will help you get better results, save money, and find a good tanning salon or tanning bed.

But the best way to keep salon owners and tanning bed manufacturers is to ask them straight up, and use a UV meter on the bed. A UV meter measures how much UV is being put out.