More Salons Are Calling UV Units Sunbeds
More than 1 in 3 indoor tanning facilities now refer to their UV tanning units as sunbeds — a term that accurately portrays the fact that sunbeds are, above all else, a surrogate for natural sunshine. Less than 1 in 4 salons used the term sunbeds when Smart Tan asked the same question in 2012.
“While professional indoor tanning facilities conduct their services as cosmetic businesses, UV tanning units were first invented to serve as a substitute for outdoor sunshine in parts of the world where regular sunshine is scarce,” Smart Tan Executive Director Joseph Levy said. “That’s just part of teaching a balanced message about sun care and sunburn prevention.”
According to the SmartTan.com poll, 59 percent of salons call their UV units indoor tanning beds, while 35 percent refer to them as sunbeds. The remaining 6 percent use different terms. In 2012, just 24 percent used the term sunbeds.
The trend toward toward use of the word sunbeds is part of a broader movement featured in the January issue of Smart Tan Magazine about the effort to bridge the gap in perception between sunshine and sunbeds. The article focuses on Canadian salon chain Fabutan’s strategy to accomplish this goal. Their plan is straight-forward and simple: Remove “tanning” from the franchise’s vocabulary. It’s not a matter of making the word taboo; the effort intends to favor words like “sunshine” and “sunlight” to help draw the connection between outdoor and indoor exposure. After years of discussion among industry leaders, it’s a transition that has been a long-time coming.
“Matt Russell, Joe Levy, Steve Gilroy, Mat Rockey and I have been moving in this direction for six to eight years,” says Doug McNabb, chief culture officer at Fabutan. “The idea has always been to first extol the benefits of sunlight, and then educate people that the 95% UVA, 5% UVB ration delivered by low-pressure sunbeds is the same as the ration of natural sunlight.”
