It used to be the case that having a tan was about as unfashionable as it was possible to get. As far back as ancient Greek and Roman times, having a tan showed that you were working class and had to toil out in the open rather than being a refined lady or gentleman of leisure. In Elizabethan times women (particularly) would go to great lengths to avoid getting a tan and the milky-white complexion they sought was achieved by lead based makeup that damaged the skin horribly. The parasol became an indispensable accessory and no one in their right mind would venture out into the sun without one.
All this changed in 1923 when fashion designer Coco Chanel returned from a holiday in the French riviera sporting a tan. Some say it was deliberate, some say she had a glass of wine too many and fell asleep on the deck of the yacht she was on. In either event it caused a storm with women all over Europe hurrying to emulate the fashion icon.
This was more than a brief fad, the tanned look made people look slimmer and healthier with whiter teeth and generally more attractive. During the second world war women were attempting to dye their skin brown with tea bags and even Bovril and shoe polish. Shortening skirts and the invention of the bikini in 1946 made the requirement for an all over tan even greater. Also in 1946 General Electric started producing their Sun Kraft tanning lamps.
The browning properties of DHA (the main active ingredient in spray tanning products) had been known about since the 1920s when German scientists first noticed that it turned their skin brown several hours after they got it on their hands, but no one tool much notice or looked into the phenomenon until the 1950s when a researcher at a Cincinnati hospital called Eva Wittgenstein worked out how this ‘delayed browning’ took place and deliberately use it as a self-tanning agent.
In the late 50s the first tanning product using DHA Man-Tan was released, marketed as a tanning aftershave. In 1960 Coppertone produced a DHA based tanning lotion called “Quick Tan” or just “QT,”
In the 1970s the link between the sun and skin cancer was becoming inescapable. At that time, however, it was believed that UV tanning beds were safer than normal sunbathing and their sales and usage increased sharply.
In 1997 Estée Lauder chemists started spraying the tan on with an atomiser rather than just rubbing cream into the skin as they claimed that the smaller particles went deeper into the skin producing a better colour and longer lasting tan. That same year Starr Hamson of what is now the American company Fantasy Tan claims to have come up with the idea of using a spray gun for applying fake tan.
In 2004 having got a small pop up tent for her children and realising that a larger version would be ideal for spray tanning, Nichola Mathews started the Spray Tan Cubicle Company which four years later became Sienna X.
By then it was becoming apparent that sunbeds were no better for you than sunbathing on the beach. In 1990 the World Health Organisation reported that the regularly using a tanning bed by those under 35 could increase the risk of skin cancer by 75 percent. In England it is illegal to permit under 18s to use a sunbed and most states in America have age restrictions as well.
This obviously boosted the market for ‘fake’ tans tremendously and it is now a multi-million (multi-billion if you use the American billion) pound industry it has become today.