Friday, 1 April 2016

SunGun Spray Tanning

Spray Tanning is the only dermatologist recommended way to tan. Get the perfect tan you always wanted and avoid all of the harmful skin damage that comes from UV tanning beds. In 5 minutes you'll look as though you spend every day in the sun working on your tan! Our private rooms are designed specifically for spray tanning and we feature a state-of-the-art salon with individual air conditioned and ventilated rooms for your comfort. After a quick consultation to identify the right tan for you, one of our Airbrush Artists will apply our SunGun Tanning formula in the comfort of our air-conditioned and ventilated spray rooms while you simply relax and let us do the tanning for you.

Conveniently located in the Tempe Marketplace and North Scottsdale, getting a spray tan fits in every busy schedule. The salon serves both men and women with an all female staff. With that being said, while women can choose to get a tan in whichever clothing they may or may not choose wear. Men must be at least minimally covered up out of respect for their valued artist. Don't worry guys everything you need to cover up is available at both stores.

When you walk into either salon you'll be greeted at the front by one of the artists and spend a few minutes discussing which kind of tan you're looking for. They feature light, medium, and dark tans for the exact gold tan, bronze tan, or dark exotic tan you're looking for. As well as a rapid tan or the longer-lasting tan. While the rapid takes less time to set up, it won't last as long or get quite as dark. It depends on what you're looking for. The rapid tan is 1-3 hours to set up and lasts for about a week. The longer-lasting tan takes 6-8 hours to fully set but lasts up to two weeks with the right maintenance and care.

Once you've chosen a tan your artist will lead you back to a private room with a door and everything. Your Tanning equipment will be in there, a chair, the fan, and plenty of room to move around and get undressed and dressed comfortably. Once you're ready your Artist comes in, checks her equipment and that the correct solution is in her spray handle, preps your hands, feet, and face, then she gives you an incredible tan in just a few minutes while you relax. You'll turn and move to ensure the tan covers your entire body in an even and smooth coat that will set just how you want it and look as natural as can be.

After you get your tan your skin will feel a little sticky from the solution. The spray tanning solution contains sugar in it so you'll feel that but you won't want to feel it yourself to make sure because you'll end up  getting the tan on the palms of your hands and your palms will be as tan as your legs for the next 7-10 days.

Be sure to bring loose fitting, dark colored clothing that you don't mind getting solution on. You want your clothes to be loose so they don't rub and take off the solution leaving you with an uneven tan. However, it's inevitable that some of the solution is going to come off on your clothes over the next couple of hours, this is normal and okay, but the dark clothes keep the solution from showing like white clothes would.

Stay away from water until you're time is up and your tan is set and you'll rinse off in the shower. There's a bronzer in the tanning solution, this gives you the dark color immediately after you get sprayed. When you shower the bronzer rinses off and you'll see it when you shower - it's completely normal, that's not your tan washing off, just the bronzer. Then your tan will continue to set until you choose to wash with soap and take it all off.

Over the next week to two weeks you'll notice your tan start to fade slowly as you wash, and exfoliate your skin. By the time that happens you'll be ready to schedule your next appointment by clicking here for spray tanning at either the Tempe or Scottsdale location, whichever one's closer to you!


MY FIRST SPRAY TANNING EXPERIENCE + A GIVEAWAY!

When it comes to fake tanning, I'm the newbiest newb who's ever newb'd. I've used self-tanner exactly once in my entire life, and at the time, I had no idea what the bottle meant by "gradual tan." The only thing I remember is that as this particular drugstore body lotion mixed with self-tanner wore off, it left my legs looking dirty, scaly and horrendously patchy two days after I applied it. To say I was not a fan would have been an understatement.

Fast forward a few years and with a mini bottle of St.Tropez in hand, I finally felt ready to tackle the fake tanning beast once again. However, reading and watching countless blog posts and videos regarding exactly how to self-tan left me ultimately feeling overwhelmed and intimidated. Luckily for me, Sunless Inc., who owns VersaSpa and Mystic Tan, offered to let me try out one of their sunless tanning booths at the perfect time.

The day after my first spray tan - Success!


I went to a local tanning salon that had VersaSpa booths and was pleasantly surprised by how clean and fancy they were. I tried out the VersaSpa Pro booth and seeing as how I tan quite easily but was rather lacking in color at the moment, I went with the Level 2 color.

In preparation for my spray tan, I exfoliated my entire body and shaved the morning of to create a smooth and even canvas for my tan (no moisturizing though!). Once I was in my tanning room, I applied their blending lotion to any chronically dry areas on my body, including my feet, ankles, knees, elbows and hands. The tan likes to latch on to dry skin (which will turn it darker than the rest of the body), so lathering up those problem areas with lotion is particularly important for even color.

Once inside the booth, I pressed a green button to start up the process. There is a voice that walks you through each step, like telling you to put your heels on "4" and toes on "2," and the ladies at the salon were extremely helpful in explaining to me the three different standing positions beforehand to ensure the most even tan possible. After each pass of spray tan, there was a pass of the heated drier to help dry the tan and so that you don't get cold standing there in your birthday suit. In total, the process took less than five minutes!


Although you can technically wash off the tan after only four hours, it's recommended to leave it on longer in order for the DHA to continue to develop the color. During this time, it's important to stay as dry as possible (i.e. don't get wet and try not to sweat!) to prevent streakiness and ensure the tan doesn't come off before it's able to do its thing. I felt a bit sticky and uncomfortable during this waiting period (it would probably be ideal to get your spray tan at night, sleep with it on and wash it off in the morning), but on the plus side, I noticed there was a complete absence of the much dreaded fake tan odor! I showered eight hours later and was extremely pleased with my medium tan that was neither too brown nor too orange. I naturally tan quite brown and ashy, but Level 2 left me looking much more bronzed and glowing. It was the perfect shade of tan for me. 

Moisturizing is crucial for maximizing the life of a spray tan. Although I typically only moisturize once a day after my shower, post-spray tan, I lathered up morning and night. I also refrained from exfoliating during the week after my spray tan, minimized shaving as much as I could, and gently patted myself dry with a towel post-shower. Remember, exfoliation of any kind means the color will come off more quickly! My color lasted through a solid seven days, after which I noticed significant fading. There were particular areas (like my chest) that did turn a bit patchy, but only once most of the color had faded anyway, so it was hardly noticeable. 

The cost for a VersaSpa spray tan varies by location, but my VersaSpa Pro spray tan costed $40 at the particular salon I went to. Pricey? Absolutely. Worth it? Perhaps for a special occasion! Overall, my first spray tanning experience was a huge success.


Hollywood Airbrush Tanning Academy Issues Digital Badges

My web crawler just picked up an intriguing new use of open badges as digital credentials for workplace competencies.  Hollywood Airbrush Tanning Academy partnered with Credly to offer digital badges for their graduates.  It was interested enough that I called Academy owner Simone Emmons to learn more. Sure enough, this example highlights some key points about alternative digital credentials.

  Simone Emmons
 One of the reasons why I was intrigued by this press release was because I suspect that some might initially find these badges trivial.  People always point to "attendance badges" as a  one of the reasons that many employers and universities have yet to take digital micro-credential serious. I  have been ranting about such "carpetbadging" for some time because it leads them to dismiss the value of other badges.
            But I was pretty sure that the folks at Credly would help Simone figure out how to get the necessary evidence into the Certified Airbrush Tanning Technician badge. That in turn might let me drive home the point that badges in and of themselves are largely meaningless.  Rather, it is the claims and evidence that the badges displaythe evidence that the badges link to, and the way this information takes on meaning as it gets stretched across issuers, earners, educators, and viewers.

It turns out that Simone (originally from Berlin) has previously led Human Resources departments in the manufacturing sector.  So she really “gets” credentials.  In 2011 she expanded her highly successful spray tanning studio in LA to establish one of the few places where you can learn spray tanning that focuses exclusively on education.  It turns out most of the other training opportunities are offered by distributors who also selling spray tanning products and equipment.  According to Simone—
 Training is actually really important in our industry.  There currently are no regulations and people can learn it on their own or from somebody whose real goal is selling equipment and projects. There are actually six different primary skin types, and people need to get expert instruction and practice matching solutions to skin type if they want to be certain they never turn anyone orange. Then the need to get hands-on instruction with the spray techniques themselves so they know they can do it correctly starting with their very first client.
That last part made me laugh.  It is one thing to get a haircut at a beauty salon.  I can imagine that nobody wants to be risk a botched spray tan from somebody who is ‘learning as they go.”
          Simone put up a blog post that explains how she worked with Credly to figure out how and how much evidence the could put in their badges.  If you click on the badge at that site or at the website of one of the earners, you can what the earner had to do to earn of the Certified Airbrush Technician badge:
The holder of this badge completed the hands-on Airbrush Tanning Course and is a certified Airbrush Tanning Technician with the Hollywood Airbrush Tanning Academy. The holder of this badge has learned the advanced Hollywood spray tanning technique and knows how to match spray tanning solution to different skin types, how to spray tan with an HVLP system/spray gun, and has spray tanned 3-4 models.
The badge includes links back to Tanning Academy website where you can learn more.  For example, you can learn that the the training can be completed in one day.  If you go the the Academy page at Credly you can see that as of today sixteen people have earned this badge. This information takes on different meaning for different audiences.  Consider for example:


If you were somebody trying to get a tanning business off the ground, this evidence might  be just what your first paying clients might need
If you were a potential customer, you might learn that solutions need to be matched to different skin types and that some potential tanners were trained by vendors--making for a more informed consumers.
 If you were a stylist for one of the celebrity clients like those who go to Simone's own studio, you might want evidence of more experience and expertise.
If you were a satisfied customer, you might you might follow the links to learn about the academy and take the class yourself and try to break into the business.
If you were looking for somebody in your town to offer this service or an somebody to freelance in your salon, you might find someone at the Credly site.
It is worth noting that the evidence link in each of the badges simply links to a picture of the earner smiling holding the traditional certificate that they earned.  Of course, in many badges this link goes back to addition evidence supporting those claims.  For example, the Credly badge that I earned for doing a virtual presentation at the EDUCAUSE annual meeting includes extensive details about the conference along with an evidence link back to a recording of the actual webinar that I presented and the slides from my talk.
        Certainly Simone might have include more information, such as the level expertise the training demonstrated at the end of their training. But that would have been overkill.  And that brings me to the point of this post. This example that some might initially find trivial actually nicely illustrates how digital badges allow issuers to adapt the rigor or their credentials to the context, and how this information can then circulate in social networks that allows web-enabled information about education and competencies to circulate in professional networks.  That allows this information to both take on new meaning and create new meaning.