Had a customer at work ask a really good question the other day, and wanted to share it with you. I used to get asked this a lot, and figure many of you would ask the same.
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How long after tanning should you wait to take a shower? I have heard several different answers to this question but I want your answer. Thank you J. G.
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Dear J. G.,

I’ve heard several different answers as well. I think it depends on whether you are using lotion or not. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Assuming you are, I think the reason you want to wait up to 30 minutes is to allow a longer time to let the ingredients in the lotion soak in, which would give you almost an hour with the lotion on.

What we have always recommended (and remember, there is no hard “science”, just educated guesses) is to wait 15 to 30 minutes after you tan to let the lotion do its job, and to use an after shower lotion. These are the “all in one” lotions typically. They are mainly moisturizer, but also have stuff in them to help you tan afterwards. Blue Moon moisturizer is a good example (about $14 for 16 oz) as is Revenge Deception (w/bronzer) and Sweet Revenge (w/o) which are more expensive. Any moisturizer is good, and if it has tyrocine or melanin, even better. There are many brands to choose from, the ones I list are just a couple I am most familiar with.

The idea behind this is that once you expose your skin to UV, it takes 24 hours to get the full effect, for the melanin to mix with oxygen and get brown. Having the ingredients on the skin is beneficial, as is the moisturization. Again, even with 14 years experience, I am not an expert on this, but this “tradition wisdom” seems to make sense to me.

Dennis

Normally I just post letters I get, but had to jump up on the soap box this afternoon. Found a rather interesting article while reading Slashdot (News For Nerds) today. It concerns how a lack of vitamin D may be the single largest contributor of cancer in the USA. Of course, the best source of vitamin D is TANNING, which the media have been preaching against for years.

Many doctors have already known that getting too little sun will result in higher incidence of cancers, including skin cancer. This is why northern European countries (which get very little sun) have the highest incidence of skin and other cancers. Common sense wins again, and yes, light to moderate sun or tanning bed exposure seems to be just what the doctor ordered, even if he didn’t order it.

My favorite quote was “Only brief full-body exposures to bright summer sunshine — of 10 or 15 minutes a day — are needed to make high amounts of the vitamin.” which is the exact average exposure in a tanning bed. The study showed that people who do not get enough vitamin D (which is normally from sun exposure) are 60% more likely to get cancer. That means lack of sun is more dangerous than smoking, which is mind boggling but clearly documented.

The main article can be read here.

For all of you who keep writing and wanting to know how to wire your own system, here is a very simplified diagram of a single lamp. Multiple lamps would just be parallel after the capacitor.

You might want to read further into the blog to hear when it is a good idea, and when it is NOT a good idea, to build your own. Use this at your own risk, etc.

Dennis

I have had a few emails regarding older beds that don’t tan like they used to. If you are not getting the power you used to, here is something that may help re-energize your old bed. I will assume you have fresh lamps, you have already reconditioned your acrylic with Novus, and the reflectors and lamps are clean, but still not getting the power it used to have.

Two words: Cooling system.

This is one of the most ignored part of a tanning bed, but it is so important that if a tanning bed manufacturer changes the cooling system in their tanning beds, they must recertify the beds. It affects the tanning that much. Here is a little background on why.

Tanning lamps are plasma devices, which means they generally create a fair amount of heat. The ambient temperature in the tanning chamber (the area below the acrylic and above the reflectors) needs to stay within a specific range to get maximum tanning power: 90 and 110 degrees F. Any lower or higher and you are not getting maximum UV.

I have done some tests on this personally, and found the output to drop drastically with temperature. As a matter of fact, a tanning bed doesn’t tan evenly during a tanning session either (assuming you are the first in the bed for the day). The bed starts out weak because the ambient temperature is too low. Then it increases until it peaks, which could be 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the design. A good cooling system will maintain the same temperature after 10 minutes, a bad or defective system will keep getting hotter, so the UV will start going down.

This means you need to VISUALLY check all your cooling fans with the bed on. Check all the vent holes for obstructions, including dust. Replace any defective fan (under $20 each anywhere) and clean out the vent holes. The bed has to not only breath, but breath properly.

Another thing to look out for: foam. Some beds use foam inside to force the air to go OVER the lamps in the tanning bed. It is usually a piece that goes from front to back near the middle or the end. Typically it is one piece, but the design could require two. If you remove this foam, you will change the cooling of the bed, and the UV output. Foam air guides are most common on older German tanning beds and American clones of them, such as SonnenBraune, Montego Bay, SCA, but even newer Alpha Sun beds use this in their Sunny models.

So check out the cooling system before assuming that old bed is just tired. An old bed will tan just as good as a new bed if you have good acrylics, good venting, good lamps and it is in good repair. The key is to keep up with the maintenance, before it becomes too expensive.

Dennis

Dear TanningBeds.org,

I have been shopping for bulbs for my wolff bed, and I see several webcites are giving away $200 in free lotions. My common sense says something isn’t right, but it looks like a good deal. What should I look for to find the best deal?

[name withheld]

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Dear friend,

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Here is my personal take on it: The $200 in free lotions i based on “suggested retail”, which is twice the real price, and twice their cost. So they are giving you $50 max. Now, they aren’t really GIVING you anything, it is built into the price, so you are paying more for the lamps.

A perfect example is a customer who called the other day, after being quoted $600 for a set of lamps that are compatible with other lamps we sell for $240. They got the “$200 in free lotions”, plus overpaid for shipping ($50 instead of $35). Here is the price breakdown:

They paid: $650 and got $100 in wholesale lotion.

They could have paid: $240 for the lamps, $35 for the shipping, $100 for the lotion for a grand total of: $375

They overpaid by: $275, or almost TWICE the price.

Another drawback is they didn’t get to pick the lotions they received, and probably won’t use most of the lotions they were sent. In the end, the “$200 in free lotion” cost them $275. This is NOT a good deal, unless you are the one selling the lamps.

What you should look for is GOOD LAMPS. Buy your lotion seperately, as they have to ship in different packages anyway. You can find great lamps in the $9.99 to $14.99 range if you shop around (try a sponsor and others). The hooks are just that: hooks to lure you into what looks like a great deal, but isn’t.

Same goes for “buy 20 lamps, get 4 free”. There is no such thing as “free”, from anyone. Compare the quality of the lamps, the total price, including shipping, and get what is right for your bed and your needs. Ignore the bogus “specials” and you are guaranteed to save more money, and get the right lamp.

Dennis

Dear TanningBeds.org,

My wife just bought a sonnenbraune wolff 524 tanning bed that had been hardwired in at it’s former home. I need to know what the wires are for so that i can wire it in. It has 4 wires red, white, green, and black. I have been unable to locate a wiring diagram anywhere. any help would be appreciated

Scott

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I have heard that they recently went out of business, so getting a manual may be tough. Fortunately, I used to work on and sell those beds. Wiring is a piece of cake. The red and black are HOT, the white is Neutral, the green is ground. It needs a 30 amp, 4 wire connection.

Not all SonnenBraune beds use this wiring scheme, but many 4 wire tanning beds do, including the SonnenBraune 524 (but NOT the 524E and 524ES), 624, 728, 732 as well as SunDash R26, R32, Montego Bay Wolff 24, plus the 2400, 2600, 2800, and 3200 Classic and Legend beds. Same for most Tan America beds and many other US made beds, even new SunMaster 32s.

Don’t use a 3 wire and combine the white and green, which may *sorta* work. All the electronics in that bed are actually 120V, it uses the two hots to power the different halves of the bed. This is why it needs the neutral, and this is why it needs to be 30 amp. The hots only need 20 amp, but the shared neutral pushes the electrical requirements up to a 30 amp circuit (usually 10 gauge wire).

Remember this when you buy fans, timers, relays, etc as well, since they will actually be 120V and not 240V.

Dennis