Bulb Change:

At the Beach House we guarantee results every time you tan. That’s because we change our bulbs every 250 hours. That’s 1 quarter of the manufacture recommended bulb change. Tanning bulbs are the strongest when they’re new and gradually loose tanning power over time.

Cosmetic tanning is a pleasant exercise of one of our bodies' natural functions:

When sunlight, or artificially created ultraviolet light, contacts human skin, a tanning response takes place. Actually, this response is the body's creation of a protective "umbrella"through the darkening of the cells in the upper layer of the skin.

How this happens actually involves a little bit of physics and a little bit of photobiology; but don't let that scare you - the concepts are easy enogh to grasp!

It all starts when ultraviolet (UV) light contacts the skin. Different components of the UV perform different functions. These components are:

UVA1:

Invisible light energy with wavelengths of 340-400 nanometers. This UV component tans the skin by oxidzing melanin granules.

UVA2:

Invisble light energy with wavelenghts of 320-340 nanometers. This intermediate, or erythemal UVA has some of the characteristics of UVA1, and some of the characteristics of UVB.

UVB:

Invisible light energy with the wavelengths of 280-320 nanometers. This UV component reddens the skin, and initiates the tanning process, by stimulating the formation of melanin.

A nanometer, by the way, is a metric measurment, equal to about 1/100,000 the thickness of a human hair.

The first step in the tanning response is a reddening reaction called erythema. This is the skin's response to UVB. Erythema also causes the formation in the skin of a protective substance called melanin. This naturally-synthesized material is intended to reduce the transparency of the upper layers of skin - thus protecting it. As the melanin rises to the surface, the UVA rays contained in a tanning exposure, oxidize the melanin and causes it to turn brown. And thus, a tan is born!