After a mere 29-hour flight, I arrived in the land Down Under. 

Uncurling my legs from their cramped coach seat position, I hobbled like a zombie through customs and looked through glazed eyes at beautiful Sydney, Australia.

I was there to attend the annual International Beauty Expo held at Sydney Convention & Exhibition Center in Darling Harbour on September 11th and 12th.

If your geography is a little rusty, let me give you a quick lesson.  Australia is the world’s sixth largest country, with over 7,000 beaches.  Basically, it’s a very sunny place!  Australians live under some of the strongest sun in the world, as the ozone layer is at its thinnest there.  To compound the situation, most Australian residents are descendents of the United Kingdom—all fair-haired, Skin Type I folks who really shouldn’t have much UV exposure.  To that end, all the school kids MUST wear wide-brimmed hats in the sun; it’s even part of their school uniform. (See photo at right.)     

     So, with all that sun, how could Australia have any indoor tanning industry at all?  Down Under, they sell indoor tanning as offering some protection from the intense UV radiation that one would be exposed to casually outdoors.  And, all those fair-haired Aussies like to have that bronzed look, so sunless spray tanning has really been booming there.   

A World of Difference

Back to the geography lesson: Australia is on the other side of the equator, so their seasons are the opposite of ours – our fall is their spring.  That makes a trade show in September the perfect time to introduce the latest tanning products. At this show, the “latest” products are actually those that were introduced last year at the ITA World Expo! Heralded at this show was the “new” California Tan TurboBronzer 3000 system, and the “new” Designer Skin Miracle tanning lotion collection. The Australian indoor tanning market is not yet big enough to support an all-tanning trade event, so they don’t have a show like our ITA Expo or Vegas Expo. Instead, tanning tags along with their beauty trade show, and follows the same format as most shows in England, Italy, France and Germany.  There, we typically see tanning vendors next to exhibitors of nail, spa and cosmetic products. 

Sunless in the Land of Sun

I walked around the show floor hoping to photograph all the sunless spray booths for this article, and to my surprise, no one was demonstrating!  After stopping back at those exhibits repeatedly, I finally got it—they just don’t think demos are necessary.  They have reps talking about the spray booths and offering literature, and they maybe spray someone once an hour on a posted schedule; a dramatic change from shows I’ve attended worldwide where models and attendees are sprayed every moment to show that “instant golden glow.” (Some spray booths were actually spraying water, NOT solution, so they could use the same model over and over.)  

My curiosity piqued, I asked Thierry Botel, the Ergoline and Cal Tan distributor, to share some stats on sunless units sold in Australia. Brace yourself! Thierry’s count shows 7,000 hand-held spray tan units in use there!  Fantasy Tan has sold 1,800 and 2,000 are Sun FX, and a company we aren’t familiar with – Bonza Bronz – had sold 2,000 units!  Spray booths are much newer and a more difficult sale, since Australia doesn’t have the tanning salon traffic to support them.  (Pre-show, Thierry estimated the number of sunless booths in use to be around 50 between Magic Tan, Mist-On and Mystic Tan.) In comparison, Thierry figures there are 600 commercial studios in Australia with four or more tanning beds, and in addition, there are one or two tanning units in use at 1,500 beautician studios, 700 gyms, 500 hair salons and 40 day spas. 

A couple of the U.S. sunless companies were represented at this show; the “Mystic Man” Ricky Croft, has cleverly devised a Mystic Tan booth with fold-down shades to provide privacy for anyone who wants to be sprayed “live.”  Ricky was only spraying potential clients who were considering buying a unit.  He tanned 70 folks in two days and was very excited about the response.

 I encountered a sunless tanning advance we have yet to see in the U.S.: “mobile spray tanning!”  Many beauticians (called “beauty therapists”) were shopping for mobile units to load into their cars and travel to clients’ private homes on a regular weekly basis, or for “spray parties” or wedding groups. While mobile spray tanning is on the rise there, home UV tanning units are an increasingly smaller part of the market.

An International Flavor

In addition to seeing a few American friends at the Australian International Beauty Expo, I also ran into some indoor tanning guests far from home.  On the first day of the show, I was pleased to see Volker Wendland, President/CEO of JK-Holding, GmbH, with Brigitte Kratz, Director of Strategic Business Development at JK-Holding, GmbH, and Yens Uwe-Reimers, the International Managing Director of Ergoline-Germany.  We all joined the Ergoline-Australia team for a beautiful dinner waterside at Darling Harbour. 

I also had the pleasure of meeting the Ergoline dealer from Japan, Liou Numao, who is the Managing Director of UVA Solartone.  I was happy to hear that Japan has their own tanning organization with many members.  The tanning industry has increased tremendously there, with gyms all adding stand-up tanning systems to their offerings.

As you would imagine, a few representatives from New Zealand tanning salons came over for the show—it’s about a 3-hour flight from Auckland.  Tiffany and Paul Brown, owners of Larbro Holdings Distribution, attended the show and as we chatted, they described the New Zealand market to me. In a country with 4 million people, there are only 5 stand-alone tanning salons, and sessions still cost just $3. New Zealanders are very worried about the sun—the ozone layer that hangs over thier country is also thin.

IST thanks “roving reporter” Brenda Fishbaugh for preparing yet another interesting story!

What, No Samples?

It was also great to see another friendly face from the U.S. – my buddy Brandon Cardinal of Pro Tan was there for the third year in a row, and gave me a synopsis on the Australian lotion market.  When it comes to lotions, Brandon finds the salons there are about five years behind the U.S.  He talked to 167 salon owners in one day and beauty therapists seemed confused about how tingle or hot action products increase the tan, as well as the difference between DHA products and cosmetic bronzers. The Australian market loves packettes (they call them “sachets”) and one hundred packettes are sold in salons for every one bottle of lotion!  At this event, lotion samples aren’t given away on the show floor – they’re sold at retail price. Wouldn’t salon pros be shocked if we tried that at the ITA Expo?

Good On Ya, Mates!

As an eyewear advocate, I adore Australians!  They all wear their goggles or disposable eyewear when they tan. They happily use the elastic headband so their goggles fit better, especially in stand-ups!  The contrast between the Australian tanners, with over 95 percent wearing eyewear, and tanners in the U.S., half of whom do NOT wear eyewear, is just mind-boggling.  The Australians have no concept of dreaded “raccoon eyes” and don’t even know what I am referring to when I talk about avoiding tanlines from goggles.  Interestingly, the Australians don’t even have laws about wearing goggles; they only have a standard.  Their standard does not allow the use of any goggles that do not have elastic to hold the eyepieces in place, with the exception of disposables, which use adhesive. So, even without a law or any penalties, the Aussies are happy to protect their eyes while enjoying a solarium (the Aussie word for “tanning bed”).

‘Til Next Year...

Despite the long flight and never-ending jet lag, the Aussies are wonderful hosts and their Beauty Expo is so much fun. I’m very glad I went!