Today, while I am focusing more on the coaching side of things, I do offer mobile spray tans three to four times a year within the Toronto area. I will spray tan clients for fitness competitions and special events with large groups such as [festivals like] Caribana. I am seeing more and more people of color wanting spray tans — especially for events. Women of color want that melanin to pop without the risk of damaging their skin.

When tanning my Black and brown clients, my go-to solutions — or as I like to call them, the Fab Four for darker skin tones — are SunnaTan, St. Tropez, SunFX, and South Seas. What makes these solutions great for darker skin tones are their DHA percentages and the finish they leave on the skin. [Ed. note: DHA, or dihydroxyacetone, is a type of sugar that reacts with amino acids within the skin to provide a gradual tan.] 

Most people of color with medium to dark skin tones need a solution with 10% DHA or more. If a spray tan artist can’t find brands that offer those percentages, then they may have to double spray their people-of-color clients and advise them to let the tan process longer before rinsing. So instead of rinsing off in three hours, for example, they should advise clients with darker skin tones to rinse the solution off in six hours — it all depends on the skin tone.

When customizing spray tan solutions for my Black and brown clients, I will combine various spray tan solutions but I’ll only do so with solutions of the same brand. Why? Because there are so many undertones within our melanin-rich hues. Darker skin tones can pull a rusty or muddy look, and people of color with lighter skin tones can pull an orange look. I am not here to tell you not to mix with other brands, but if you can’t guarantee the outcome — especially with a new client, I would save it until you’ve had practice on a friend or family member.

I developed my e-book, Blackfishing & The Spray Tan Industry: What Spray Tan Artists Need to Know, as a result of what many people of color were seeing in the sunless industry. Blackfishing [in this industry] is when a spray tan is super dark on a white person who wants to give the impression they are of a different race or culture, for example, Middle Eastern or Latinx. Everything that Black and brown women were once called “ghetto” for has now become a trend — such as big hoop earrings, full lips with dark lipliner and gloss, long nails, braids, and cornrows… even our darker skin, and now it’s trending? We are not a trend and we are not trending. People of color have paid many sacrifices and have even lost our lives just for being who we are. So when people take from our culture and community to use it as a trend when it serves them, and take it off when it doesn’t — that’s Blackfishing. And it’s not cool no matter how much the mainstream wants to glamorize it.