ETS Tanning Bed Blog

Melanotan is a "tanning" drug that has hit the streets and the Internet hard. It’s unlicensed, untested and unregulated and your customers may start asking about it.

How Melanotan Works

Melanotan is a synthetic peptide hormone that essentially stimulates the body’s production of melanin, the substance that makes us tan. Its follow-up drug, Melanotan II is also a libido booster. The drugs were first developed at the University of Arizona as way to help the body create a natural defense against skin cancer – through a slowly developed and natural tan.

I want to applaud the Indoor Tanning Association for standing up to defend Darque Tan, the tanning salon being sued by the Texas Attorney General for claiming tanning provides Vitamin D.

If you haven’t been following this gripping story, you can read about Robbie Segler and Darque Tan right here on our blog. Basically, Segler made a claim in one of his television ads that UV exposure boosted Vitamin D synthesis, a claim that’s substantiated by numerous studies. As a result, Segler came under fire for supposedly violating the Texas Health Code.

This week, the Indoor Tanning Association stood up and asked the Texas AG why he’s suing Darque Tan for making the same claims as Vitamin D experts at the University of California Riverside, Creighton University and Harvard Medical School?

This week’s statement from the ITA cited researchers like Dr. Anthony Norman , who is calling on the government to increase the recommended daily dosage of vitamin D, and quoted the association’s president Dan Humiston as saying “Laws denying tanning salon owners the ability to truthfully tout the benefits of vitamin D are outdated. Now that we know moderate exposure to UV light stimulates vitamin D production, there is no reason that we shouldn't be able to make our customers aware of that fact."

Robbie Segler is the owner of Darque Tan , a chain of tanning salons with more than 90 locations in Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Florida and Nevada. The tanning mogul recently came under a lot of heat over a series of ads that tell viewers about how the tanning process helps the body create Vitamin D.

The ads (which can be viewed on YouTube here and here) simply state that “UVB from tanning converts cholesterol into vitamin D.” Segler and his ads make no mention of the numerous independent studies that have all found that increased Vitamin D intake decreases a person’s risk for developing cancer (Link: http://www.forbes.com/health/feeds/hscout/2007/06/08/hscout605382.html ).

And though Segler didn’t make any health claims, just the simple medical fact that tanning and UV exposure encourages Vitamin D synthesis, he has still come under fire from the Texas Department of State Health Services and other indoor tanning critics for supposedly violating the Texas Health Code.

This just in – Jennifer Aniston is a die-hard tanner.

After having her personal tanning bed malfunction on her the day before an important photo shoot, she invested in not one, but two Wolff tanning beds for her home. One was to become her primary bed and the other an emergency backup.

You know, I’ve loved Jenifer Aniston since she first appeared as Rachel on Friends, but this commitment to tanning has taken my admiration one step further.

The sun-kissed star is all about the tanned look and was willing to pay $34,000, according to Star magazine, for the two personal beds. Unfortunately, the article (which can be found here ) goes on to say that Anniston’s friends are worried about her tanning and “the long-term effects” it will have on her health, making it yet another “news” piece that fails to touch on the safer shifts in the tanning industry and contemporary equipment. Read the comments in that article for a very interesting look into the public’s view on tanning.

Sarah Palin, vice president and running mate of John McCain, is famously making waves all by herself.  Several issues have been attached to her, perhaps in an effort by political schemers to destroy her image. Not surprising... usually I don't really pay attention.

However, I was quite interested in one such off-beat story about her involving tanning beds.