Hello,

My partner is looking at the possibility of buying a Sienna-x kit and doing their training with a view to moving part time in her existing job and doing this part time and i just wanna know if this is viable? Has anyone else done this kind of thing with success / failure? How much would she charge for a tan? I basically want to know if this can work before investing hundreds of pounds into it, and is it something that in the future she could possibly do full time and earn a good living from? Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I started doing nail extensions last year and then man/ped and waxing. But i have to say i do far more spray tanning and enjoy that more as well. I also work in an office. At the mo i couldnt afford to give up my office job but it is picking up and you have to start some where it takes time to get your clients. I charge £20 a tan and do tanning parties but every area is different with prices.

I hope to eventually give up the office job and do this full time.

Good Luck

Hi

I work part time in an office and do spray tans part time, but I cant tell you if it is worth i yet as I have only this week recieved my leaflets and only just started up. So far I havent had any clients ring me from leafets I have handed out, but I have only today been to hairdressers to give them out.

I will keep you informed if you like?

Oh, I live in Huddersfield and I charge £20 for a tan.

I offer spray tanning aswell as my other treatments waxing extensions wedding make up man and peds tinting and childrens facepainting. I do quite a lot of tans but there is no way i could make a decent living out of just doing tans its just a good extra. Plus in winter months say after the new year to april it goes really quiet i guess if you were only offering tanning you would really have to sell hard try wedding fayres and demos to drum up business get into gyms and dance schools and defo do tanning parties also sell your clients the retail products to make extra cash i would invest but dont give up the day job a lot of my tanning clients want it in the evening so they can then just go to bed and let it develop over night so be prepared to put in un social hours the going rate is between £18 and £22 per full body spray.

There is actually no simple answer to this.

Firstly, if you are asking me if the blurb on the spray tan companies leaflets about 8 tans a day, meaning you can earn nearly 50 grand a year is true....then sorry the answer is no. Those sums neatly forget the vital little things like....finding 8 clients a day is hard work, and takes a long time to build up to. You have to buy solution and sundries...all of which cost money, fuel costs if mobile, or rent if not. They also usually work out their sums on charging every client £25 and never having to drop that price...the reality being that very few people can afford £25 on a regular basis, and its promotions that keep clientele regular....and regular clients are the ones that keep a business afloat!

However, yes spray tanning can be a good profitable line within reason. I would suggest not relying on it as an only source of income for the early days, do the sums yourself rather than believe what everyone else tells you and remermber that as far as the suppliers are concerned, they are doing it to earn money for themselves and what you see is essentially a sales pitch to get you to choose them over the next guy.

I have a reasonably succesful nails and spray tan business, although spray tanning is earning me the lions share at the moment, but I have purposefully not 'gone' 100% with any supplier, so I can always ensure I have the right mix of costs, quality and variation for my clients. I don't believe any one solution suits all...I use 2 or 3, and I identified the machine I wanted to use, based on my longer term requirements, before then deciding who was best (and not just best cost) to purchase it from.

I do however know of techs who have purchased a quick cheap machine that burns out after a few tans (the Argos one is a joke - the only way to true success in this industry is professionalism, so use professional suppliers), they throw together a home-made cubicle Blue Peter style, buy the cheapest solutions they can find, and then moan about tough times when their clients start coming to me for a professional tan applied in lovely clean, professional and relaxing surroundings, designed with a bit of thought for the clients privacy and comfort, and go home knowing their tan is perfect and gorgeous!

Food for thought, hopefully?

I definately wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket.Spray tanning is the thing of the moment and although i think it is here to stay,people are fickle and its not something that people will generally feel they have to maintain like their hair,nails waxing etc.

Also with the amount of promotion on sites about how much you can earn and how easy it is to do and also the ease at which ANYONE can buy the products and equipment everyone will soon be doing it,probably just on themselves and eachother in which case there may well be noone to tan anyway or the market will be saturated with tanning techs.I think this is showing itself at the moment with the prices in some places being ridiculously low.

Having said that for my business and most others on here who are nail techs or beauty therapists i think most will say its a great add on.

After reading some of the above comments spray tanning seems to be something that is popular with clients. I was just wondering if this is possible to do mobile, if anybody does it mobile? Or is this something best left to doing in salons/home salons?

Hi becky, yes it can be done very successfully mobile, you can offer it for one person in their own home or offer it as a spray tanning party where a group of girls get together in one of the homes and you go there and spray them all,
you can buy spray tanning tents for doing the treatment in peoples homes hth

Yes i do it mobile and its not a problem

Just lugging all the gear around kills you after a long day

I have looked at doing spray tans as an add on to my nail tech business and also want to introduce waxing this year, what concerns me is the amount of people starting it up. I have seen this with nails and have to say that if I was not already trained I would probably think twice about starting up. This is because over the last 5 years I have seen the prices for nails in my area drop from £40 for a set to £20 and I know there are a lot of tech's who are selling their stuff and going back to the office job. Not because they are no good but because they haven't got the money to back them in the quiet times.
This is because there is always going to be another crop of students qualifying and its hard to wait them out, most of them wont last the first year. The sher hard work of being self employed is just to much for the majority of people. They have believed the sales pitch and haven't realised how many tech's are still working at 10pm and on Sunday's etc.
So back to my original concern, how many people are starting up, my day job is bus driving and I pass a hair dressers that is offering tans from £10 now I know that is actually just for legs but there are a lot of silly people out there who will look at this add, panic and drop their prices for a full tan. This same hair dresser did the same thing with nails 3 years ago, the nails were fiberglass, natural and unpolished but all the town center dropped its prices to match, this hair dresser doesn't offer nails anymore.
If your partner gets into spray tanning, just like any other business she will be looking at 3 years before she starts to show a profit, its not magic its the formula that has worked for god knows how many years self employment is a long term investment, is hard work and requires constant reinvestment, into training, into new products and into advertising as well as long hours and constant commitment.
You will need to have patience, understanding and the willingness to take on some of day to day things that she currently does because she will be to tired to do them and often that will be with no extra profit to add to the house hold pot.

I am not trying to be negative here. I love my nail business and if my husband was in good health and could carry us both through my lean times I would stop the bus driving tomorrow, but I see far to many people come on here with stars in their eyes thinking they are going to make a fortune and they haven't made the 3 year business plan and they haven't got the money in the bank to carry them.
Its a shame really so much talent goes by the way side for lack of a good business plan.

Cheers everyone. I figured it was better to ask people who are already doing it than just believe what the promotional sites told me. I take it the general consensus is that it is a good thing to do, but short term and without further training it will generally not work, and it would be a while before she was able to do this full time.

And Carrie123, yes please, i would very much like to know how things go for you because it seems like your in a very similair posiion as my girlfriend would be.

Also, my partner generally splits her time between Doncaster and her parents home in Romford. Would I be right in thinking that if she was clever with taking bookings (ie doing mon-thurs here, then doing fri-sun there, or that general kind of idea) it would give her the advantage of having two possible area's of clients, thus improvig her chances of making a success of this?

Thanks again everyone, you've been really helpful.

Glad the info was of some use to you.

I previously have also split my business between 2 area's and can work well although this needs some careful planning. Don't make the mistake of thinking it will bring twice the business....it just maximises on the tanning tech's time. Some clients aren't comfortable committing to someone who isn't around full time, but then to be honest, some of mine didn't even know. They used to call up and ask when the next available appointment was, and I just gave them the one's for their area. A regular night to go for tanning parties is a good one in these circumstances too.

Buy the kit with portability in mind....and make sure that whatever transport she uses is suitable for carrying it around, and get it insured for such. Your standard liability insurance may not cover this and it may have to go on the vehicle insurance..

And most importantly....never ever leave your solutions in a warm or hot car at all. Best way to ruin them. All tan solutions.....whatever the make like cool dark conditions for optimum storage. That one I found out from experience!

Thanks very much. If anyone can give me any advice that would help her make a success of it I'd love to hear it, as i know she dearly wants it to work for her as has the long term view of training to do nails also.

Talk to collin on this site he's the Tantricks man but he will give you good impartial advice on what to look for and what to avoid from any company.

If she decides to do Spray Tanning awesome and good luck to her. Make sure she also sorts out Professional Indeminity / Public Liability insurance too for once she has trained - just something else to consider cost wise. Your trainers should be able to advise on this.

Also in terms of product / company she wishes to use I'd strongly suggest getting serveral tans from various companies to compare solutions / systems to make sure you are 100% happy with the chosen one if not done already.

Mat