Hi, In my opinion and after over 14 years experience in the spray tanning industry there is no such thing as "no" overspray from a spray tan. I have seen and worked with some of the best spray tanning technicians and also some of the worst, and they all create overspray to some extent. The spray tanning mist, especially from a HVLP machine as opposed to an airbrush comes out at 360 degrees and unless you are actually standing in a tent with your client then some overspray will go over and around a tent. It is a good idea to have the client stand further back in a tent, as has already been suggested, as however low you set your gun, whatever make, you will get a certain amount of solution "hit" the client and bounce back into the room. It will not all immediately stick to the client and stay there especially if the gun is up too high. This is easily proved by blowing your nose after a spray tanning session.
It is also a complete misconception that a spray tanning extractor has to fit in the back of a tent. One spray tanning company director actually told me it was "law"! It was thought, many years ago, when the first pop up tents were made, that this would be a good idea as it would hold all the spray tanning solution in the tent. Ambermist agreed with this and were probably the first company to invent a mobile extractor especially for spray tanning, (2005). The first spray tanning machines were compressors with an airbrush and as an airbrush can be turned down low enough to do nails and make up, this was proved effective. The problem was it took too long to spray tan a person.
HVLP machines were introduced to speed the spray tanning process up but contrary to popular belief, and a lot of propaganda, they make more overspray than an airbrush and compressor. The idea that an extractor in the back of a tent, usually at the bottom, can pull spray tanning solution from in front of a tent, past the client, and down into the extractor and leave no overspray in a room is frankly ridiculous. If it could do this it would be so noisy and so powerful it would suck most of the tan into the extractor before it could settle properly on the client.
In our opinion, and has been proven, an extractor should stand in front of the tent to the right or left of the opening depending on which hand the therapist is spraying with, (as some airborne solution will drop). It should be on low speed whilst spraying, (I am referring to the Ambermist spray tanning extractor here as I don't know how powerful others may be), and then turned up for a few minutes when the session is finished and the client has left the tent, to catch any overspray before it can settle in the room. This method will catch any overspray caused when spraying, from the bounce factor, and also the overspray that has missed the tent completely. It would probably be better to have a closable flap on the front of a pop up tent so that the airborne solution in the tent would drop to the floor when the session is finished, rather than drift back into the room,or immediately pack up the tent As we don't sell these type of tents and spray tanning solution overspray actually sticks to the inside of our inflatable tents we have never tried this out.
Another thing to remember if you are spray tanning regularly is that you are breathing this solution into your lungs. Whist there is no proof that this will cause health problems later in life, there is no proof that it won't, yet. Whilst most companies make claims that their solutions are healthier than others, that fact is they all use water and colourings and that makes most of these claims untrue.
Ambermist