Why Sweat Challenges Your Spray Tan

Perspective on Realistic Sunless Tanning Results

With “sweat-resistant spray tans” making waves in the tanning industry, AYU Sunless clarifies what this term means—and whether it’s truly achievable. Let’s dive into the science behind sunless tanning to help you set realistic expectations and make the most of your glow.

Understanding Sunless Tanning Science

At the core of any spray tan is Dihydroxyacetone (DHA), a colorless sugar that reacts with amino acids in the top layer of your skin. This process, the Maillard reaction, creates melanoidins that mimic a natural tan. Because DHA only affects the skin’s outermost layer, the tan is temporary and sensitive to daily activities—sweating included.

Why Sweat Can Affect Your Spray Tan

Sweating is the body’s natural way of cooling, releasing water, salt, and oils onto the skin. These elements can interact with DHA, sometimes leading to uneven fading or streaking, especially in areas where skin rubs together. Here’s a breakdown:

• Light Sweating: Everyday sweating generally doesn’t cause issues once the initial rinse-off is complete. AYU Sunless products are designed to be sweat-resistant after this step so that you can enjoy regular activities without significant fading.
• Heavy Sweating: Intense sweating, such as from workouts or in high humidity, can affect your tan faster. The combination of salt, water, and oils may cause the tan to fade more quickly, particularly in areas of friction, like underarms or inner elbows.

Setting Realistic Tanning Expectations

At AYU Sunless, we’re committed to clear and achievable results. While our formulas resist fading and work with your skin, expecting a fully “sweat-resistant” tan that remains perfect under all conditions isn’t realistic. Understanding how sunless tanning works and following smart aftercare can keep your tan looking fresh longer.

Tips to Help Your Tan Last

Even though a fully sweat-resistant tan isn’t entirely attainable, these habits will help your tan remain radiant day after day:

1. Stay Cool: Aim for cooler environments after your tan to minimize early sweating.
2. Pat, Don’t Rub: After sweating or showering, gently pat your skin dry to help keep an even tan.
3. Moisturize: Hydrated skin holds a tan better, keeping it even and lasting.
4. Use a Tan Extender: A DHA-infused lotion such as tan extender or self tanner can refresh your tan color and help it fade evenly.

Embracing Your Natural Glow

While a completely sweat-resistant tan might sound ideal, taking simple aftercare steps and appreciating your body’s natural processes will help maintain a lasting, healthy glow. And remember, after your first rinse, AYU Sunless spray tans are sweat-resistant, especially with the proper care!

At AYU Sunless, we’re dedicated to helping you achieve a beautiful tan that aligns with your lifestyle and enhances your natural beauty. If you have any questions about maintaining your tan or suggestions on topics you’d like us to cover, please don’t hesitate to reach out! We love hearing from our AYU Sunless community and are here to help you make the most of your beautiful glow.

In our experience, if you are exploring these anti-aging serum additives it signals that your ideal client is looking for health conscious beauty products. It also means that as a sunless tanning professional, you want to maximize the healthy skin benefits you can provide your clients. As additional results (along with a gorgeous tan) such as anti-aging and skin nourishment are becoming the new norms in the sunless tanning industry, AYU has been in the forefront of creating products already integrated with the latest healthy skin technology by using a micro emulsion base along with various extracts, vitamins, lipids, peptides, and liposomes that provide important skin benefits with each and every session which includes worry free efficiency and consistency.

The only time you should consider using additional serums in your sunless tanning solutions are when the products you are using do not contain any anti-aging or skin beneficial ingredients. You may think of using serums as a way of up-selling or customizing your service but you’re limiting your claims by what additive you use. Serums normally aim to target one healthy skin concept, while leaving others completely unaddressed, and adding multiple serums is not cost effective. However, when using AYU sunless tanning solution, our clients can claim multiple methods of skin benefits found in all of our products and highlight certain aspects of different product lines such as the hydrating, rejuvenating and rich antioxidant ingredients of our “Vino Bronzing” line or the amazing skin firming, restoring, and replenishing properties of our “Tanvee Advanced” solutions.

Serum additives can also create consistency, efficacy and concentration problems when you’re spraying throughout the day. For example, you add 4 drops of serum into your spray gun cup for your first appointment. After that appointment, you will most likely have extra solution left in your cup but you’ll need to refill your cup for your next appointment. How much more serum should you add? You still have some solution with serum leftover, so should you refill your cup and add a few drops of serum or throw the leftover solution out and refill your cup with new solution? With each choice you are either reducing your consistency and efficacy of your following session or you’re wasting solution.

All of the effective skin ingredients which are responsible for providing healthy skin benefits are supposed to be used at certain concentration in formulas to spark change. Using as few drops per treatment dilutes the results. We formulate our products with the concentrations of our beneficial ingredients already calculated and added at the time of the batch processing so the complete product has equal distribution and concentration so it’s ready for you to use without worrying about if the end result will vary from session to session.

Additive serums are a good and effective way of boosting the healthy skin effects of your sunless tanning solutions in theory, but in reality they are not well rounded, they create consistency problems, and concentrations of healthy skin ingredients are not guaranteed to be high enough to make a change. We do not recommend adding additive serums to our AYU sunless tanning products because we have already pre-formulated our products to provide the best healthy skin benefits for you and your clients’ skin!

Bronzer or color guide are mix of FD&C colors or D&C colors that give an instant temporary tanned appearance to a client’s skin before the DHA in the solution has a chance to start mallard reaction and begin tanning their skin.

Bronzers in the spray tan solution are temporary and last only until first shower after spray tan session. When spraying your clients you should always let them know that the instant tan they see now are bronzers and will wash off when they take their initial shower. This is very important so they don’t panic when they see some color washing down their drain! Always remember to reassure them that it’s not their final tan.

Why is it necessary to have bronzer in a spray tan solution?

In addition to providing that instantly-tanned appearance to your clients skin during a spray tanning session, the bronzer also works as a “coloring guide” on the client’s skin: It helps spray tan artist to see where they are spraying ensuring an even application and prevents them from spraying too much or too little product on any one part of the body.

At AYU we offer spray tan solutions with bronzer and without. We also offer only bronzer only solution for clients who do not want to commit for long term tan and needs a tan look for an event.

Also, our formulation are designed such way that would not rub off or transfer bronzers but it is always a good idea to recommend that client wear loose-fitting, darker clothes after spray session to minimize any temporary bronzer rub-off, this is very rare when using AYU spray tanning solutions

Spending time in the garden or enjoying walks around the neighborhood or playing at the beach. That’s what summer is all about!  You remembered to put on sunscreen but still it happens. Some parts of your body are a bit more tan than the rest!  Now you have to go out for the next few days sporting an uneven tan line, which can ruin that beautiful open back dress you were going to wear and wondering how you can fix this issue and even out that ta line.

No worries! Anyone can fix this with a good self or spray tanner, a proper application tool and technique. We will talk about both scenarios for at home DIY fixes  and how spray tan artist can fix clients with  similar issues.

First let’s talk about the DIY method

For this we recommend you use a good self tanner, make-up sponge and kabuki brush or tanning mitt.

Make sure to exfoliate right before you apply your self tanner to avoid any issues. Our variety of sugar scrubs removes dead skin cells while moisturizing the skin to leave a perfect canvas for a sunless tan. Make sure the area you have chosen to work in is cool because you don’t want to sweat while applying the self tanner.

Apply the self tanner (preferably choose a tanning solution or a mousse) to all the lighter areas of the skin. You will need to dab or “paint” self tanning solution with a cosmetic sponge or kabuki brush while blending at edges. Please note you might need multiple applications of self tanner to match the surrounding darker areas of the skin. After one or two applications you will notice that the lighter area is starting to look darker than rest of your body, but don’t worry! This is because your self tanner also has an instant color guide, also known as a bronzer. The bronzer will rinse off  with your first shower. Let the tan develop in the lighter pale areas for around 4 to 6 hours. At this point you can do a quick rinse to reveal the tan color on the lighter area and if you think the tan is relatively a similar tone, it’s time to apply self tanner to the full body, using the same self tanner and application tool. Start from your feet upward, covering all the areas of the body. Working quickly and making sure you have an even application. Let it develop for 6 to 8 hours and you are ready for your first shower, and remember to only rinse off with warm water, no soap, pat dry and to apply a daily moisturizer.

Plan to do this a day or two in advance before any event so your tan has time to fully develop and you can show off your beautiful tan!

Now, if you are a spray tan artist and you have a client who needs this situation fixed, the process will be similar, but will have to be done in a shorter amount of time. This will be reflected in the products used.

Make sure that the client is well prepped. Try and use a pre tan prep spray to make sure the surface of the skin is cleaned of any sweat or skin care products. Now choose two products with different DHA strengths while keeping in mind the client’s skin type. You can do this a few different ways. First choose a high DHA level product and apply that to the lighter skin area using a spray gun,  a make-up brush, or sponge while making sure to blend to the edge. Keep a hair dryer at the  cool setting or a spray gun blowing  air  handy to make sure you dry that area in-between coats. Before applying a second coat check to see if you are close to matching the tanned skin area, a  little darker is okay because that is just the bronzer looking dark. Once the last coat is dried, fill the cup with a product with a lower strength DHA solution and do a full body application, including all the earlier lighter areas in order to even out the skin tone.

As always, the same rules apply. Let your client know to stay out of water, not to exercise and to wait at least 8 hours before showering with warm shower without soap and to apply a light moisturizer afterwards.

Try to see the client again in 24 hours, via text, photos, or quick salon visit, after they have showered, to hear what they have to say and to do any touch-ups that may be needed.

A few things to keep in mind, this method is a solution to a problem and you can achieve an even skin tone with adequate practice and choosing the right products and applications.

The pale areas will often fade differently, and might look rusty or speckled after a few days. This is normal because of the lack of pigmentation in the skin.

To really take it to the next level for the perfect look you can choose a liquid bronzer or makeup product on top of the spray tan, to help further blend, and even out skin contrasts after a few days.

Hope this gets your creative juices flowing to keep your skin looking fresh and beautiful.