Why do I always spray tan orange?

by Clarys
(UK)

Question:No matter what spray tan brand or self tanning product I use, my skin always goes a bit yellow. When I sun tan or solarium tan my tan is red -brown, but with spray tans its only yellowish.

Answer:Spray Tanning and UV Tanning work on totally different principle. UV tanning produces more melanin in the skin which gives it's color, but DHA in Spray Tanning reacts with proteins in your dead skin layer to turn it "brown", so it is not really your skin producing the tan.
Most people that tan red-brown in the sun, will get much more "golden" color when spray tanning.

In fact I had a funny incident in my spray tanning studio in Byron Bay. Two first time clients came back to complain about their "orange spray tan". Luckily my son just dropped in with his "natural tan" which he acquired while surfing. The funny thing was, my son's tan was much more "orange" than my clients'.

So, if your Spray Tan is different than your natural tan it does not necessarily mean that its a bad color, just different from your beach tan.

In my case, it is actually much nicer than my beach tan color, because on the beach I tan red (and just before it peels it goes dirty brown). The only hope for me to get golden brown tan is to spray tan or use self tanning products.

However, I did come across two clients in my career that actually tanned very orange no matter what they used. That can be due to natural properties in their skin, or things like medicines they might be taking (some anti depressant drugs change properties of the skin amongst others).

Overall, spray tanning is great for about 95% of people, the other 5% unfortunately will have to go without.