Liquid sunshine: 'All this for a tan?'

This hesitation was getting silly, and I knew it. I'd been standing in the blue plastic stall for at least a minute, naked and nervous. I stared at the three nozzles and the green button that awaited my push, and I understood there was no logical reason to continue the delay. But you tell me, what does logic have to do with blasting your body with a sticky, stinky mist of chemicals?

I began replaying the events of the past hour, trying to figure out just how I had ended up in this 7-1/2-foot stall, my feet spread out on the metal plate, exactly like the video said, my arms bent at the elbows, my fingers contorted into bizarre "claws." In my mind, I ran down the list of instructions, the helpful hints and the whispered warnings.

"All this for a tan?" I said aloud, my voice echoing in the chamber.

All this for a sunless (and lampless) tan, actually. If you're trying to figure out what that could possibly mean, don't worry — just 24 hours earlier I was right there with you. It turns out that Americans have become so obsessed with darkening their complexions that there's now money to be made selling faux tans; ones that are applied via creams or, as I was doing my best to forestall, mists. No need to bake in the sun anymore, or even in a tanning bed.

The first Mystic Tan spray-on tanning booth showed up in Dallas in 1998. Heading into this year's season, which began in March, the company had sold about 300 booths across the country, not bad considering that they go for $30,000 each. But the spray-on tan's popularity has exploded in the past eight months. Mystic Tan has sold another 250 units in that time, and just this month they placed their first one in Britain. One of the first in the Greater Seattle area appeared at the Desert Sun tanning salon in Kent a little more than a year ago.

Why the sudden popularity? A spokeswoman for the company didn't have many answers. Perhaps it's marketing, or maybe people like the fact that, unlike the sun and tanning booths, there are no cancer-causing ultraviolet rays involved. Or maybe it's that the whole process takes about a minute.

Six shops in the Seattle area now have Mystic Tan booths. Desert Sun managers Nicole Nahmias and Megan Ullakko ("It's Finnish," she said, explaining in practiced tones that her last name is pronounced yoo-lah-koh) said chemicals in the mist react with the skin to produce a tan. I would start noticing the difference in about four hours, they said, and the tan would peak in about a day and last four to five days.

Wide range of options

Nahmias and Ullakko gave me a tour of the salon, their bronze faces radiant against the lime-green hallway, and showed me the various tanning options. There were inexpensive "conventional" beds, which have plenty of exposure to the bad-for-you ultraviolet rays, and the pricier Ultrabronz beds. Atop the tanning-bed hierarchy was the SuperNova, whose cobalt filters, they said, block 99.9 percent of the ultraviolet rays while delivering a golden-brown tan.

Niki Sharp, a customer from Maple Valley, stood in the lobby, her freckled forehead looking healthy and brown. "I love the Supernova," she said. "I've tried everything ... but I love the Supernova."

She has never tried the spray-on tan, however; she looked nervously at the counter for a moment. "I heard it makes you orange," she said, finally, spurting it out quickly.

"Who'd you hear that from?" Nahmias demanded.

"From some lady who came in here and yelled," she replied.

ORANGE? As I'd thought about this assignment for the past 24 hours, my concerns had involved inhaling chemicals, even though the company says the stuff is merely a water-soluble dye that is not dangerous. It had never occurred to me that I might come out of this not bronzed but pumpkined. I considered nixing the whole first-person idea right there. I'd just write about other people using the booth.

But no one else came in for the spray tan during the next hour. It was going to have to be me, which was too bad because everything I learned about the booth from that moment forward did nothing but scare me even more.

Max Ansola, the heavily muscled, heavily tattooed co-owner of the salon, stood in the hallway and said 10 people a day come in for the Mystic Tan treatment, at least during the February-July busy season. He said there were just two things to remember: Make sure I wash my hands afterward, and dry off from my legs up. "You do those two things," he said, "and everything's gonna turn out fine."

Turn out fine, turn out fine! What is this, I thought, a scientific experiment? I'm just supposed to get a tan and write about it, I'm not supposed to be worrying about things turning out fine. He walked away, and I didn't see him again.

Nahmias led me to the lobby couch and cued up a videotape about the spray tan. On the TV screen, a lady in a pink bikini put on a shower cap, then covered her feet with little disposable booties. The narrator said to remove all jewelry and then to apply a special blocking cream to the hands. "But do not go beyond your wrists!" the narrator warned.

"Let's go over the stance," the narrator continued. The model stood in the stall and bent her elbows, curling her hands so they looked like claws. "The initial burst of spray can be startling and may be cool," the narrator said.

I was not happy.

I watched as the three nozzles moved up and down, spraying the model's entire front side. Then she turned around so her back could get tanned too.

Nahmias slipped outside for a smoke. "You dry off from the bottom up, and you dry off good," she said, exhaling. "If you don't, you're gonna get streaks. And don't squint! You want to know what happened to the owner?" Not really. "He squinted, he got streaks on his eyelids. Don't squeeze 'em shut, just close your eyes gently."

The time had finally come. I paid my $23, plus tax (the price goes down if you buy multiple sessions). I closed the door to the little room and began taking my clothes off. It was an odd feeling, getting naked in an unfamiliar, fluorescent-lit room, like being at the doctor's office.

I put on my shower cap and stepped into the stall. I spread my feet apart on the metal plate, raised my elbows up, made the claws, looked over at the green button ... and just stood there for a few seconds. I couldn't bring myself to push the button. I looked at my claws and realized suddenly that I'd forgotten the blocker cream for my hands.

Getting ready

I leaped out of the stall, grateful for my reticence, which had saved me having to walk around for the next four days with "tanned" palms. I applied the blocker and got back in the booth. I just stood there again, embarrassed by my inability to do my job. Finally I leaned over and pressed the button.

I closed my eyes and heard the hiss as the nozzles began to move. The mist enveloped me. It was sort of like the spray from one of those pump bottles that have replaced aerosol cans, except that the mist was much thicker, and it was cold. I held my breath and felt my heart beat. After 14 seconds, the nozzles went silent and I turned around. Then came the second blast. Then it was done.

As I jumped out of the stall, it occurred to me that I had no idea whether I'd squeezed my eyes. There might be some streaks, I told myself. I grabbed the towel and, as I'd been repeatedly warned, dried from the bottom up. When I finished drying my entire body, I saw that the white towel was smudged with residue dye. It looked exactly like a used shoe-polish rag. I laughed. I'd just been polished.

The next morning I stumbled into the bathroom and prepared to get in the shower. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and remembered the tan. I looked closer and, you know, it didn't look bad. It looked gentle, normal, healthy, no streaks ... and not orange!

John Wolfson: 206-464-2061 or jwolfson@seattletimes.com.