Your first spray tan:
what to expect.

Half the people who’ve never had a spray tan are held back by the same two images: turning orange, and standing awkwardly half-dressed in front of a stranger. Both fears die in the first five minutes of a real appointment. Here’s the whole thing, start to finish, so nothing surprises you but the color.

Let’s dispose of the orange question first, because it’s the one everyone secretly wants answered. Orange isn’t bad luck — it comes from three specific things, and all three trace back to treating every client the same:
1. Over-saturation — too much solution laid on the skin, so the color piles up darker and warmer than it should.
2. The wrong shade or DHA level for your skin tone — DHA is the ingredient that actually develops the color, and its strength has to be matched to you, not to an “average” skin.
3. Low-quality DHA — cheap solution oxidizes muddy and brassy instead of clean and bronze.
All three are exactly what you get when one booth solution is sprayed on every customer regardless of their skin — which is how a strip-mall tanning booth works. A custom airbrush tan works the other way around, and two things make those three mistakes almost impossible: the artist and the solution. Every Bronze Lily artist is trained by Larae personally to read your skin tone and undertone and set the right depth and DHA level for you — so there’s no over-saturating and no wrong-shade guesswork (reasons 1 and 2). And we only spray a professional-European grade, high-quality DHA sourced from sugar cane, never the cheap DHA that oxidizes muddy and brassy (reason 3). That combination — trained hands and a better solution — is exactly why our clients don’t turn orange. Fourteen years of doing this is fourteen years of not sending anyone out that color. It’s a low bar, and we clear it by a mile.

Before your appointment: the 3-step prep

• Shower and exfoliate that morning or the night before — fresh, smooth skin takes color evenly. Want it done professionally? Add the Body Buffing prep pass for $15.
• Skip lotion, oils, and deodorant on tan day — they sit between your skin and the solution.
• Do hair removal the day before, not the day of, so your skin is calm when the color goes on.

Arriving straight from work with makeup on? We’ll take care of it — a hot-towel and cleanser fresh-face prep is part of the service, not an upcharge. And if it’s your first time with us, book your free patch test 24–48 hours ahead if you are worried about skin sensitivities; it’s a two-minute visit that lets sensitive skin veto the plan safely - book online or call/text.

What actually happens in the suite

You’ll be in a private spray suite with a professional artist — never a booth. Wear as much or as little as you’re comfortable with; disposable thongs and solution-blocking hair nets are provided, along with spare hair ties and tan-line stickers if you want proof of the transformation. Then the white-glove sequence: barrier cream applied for you on the palms, nails, elbows, knees, and heels (the spots that grab too much color), the tan hand-sprayed section by section, each section machine-dried before the next. Then comes the part a booth simply can’t do: a custom detail pass — your artist goes back over you by hand, blending every edge at the wrists, knuckles, ankles, knees, elbows, and hairline so there isn’t a single line, then contouring and deepening the color exactly where you want definition. A finishing pass of luxury setting powder locks it in. The suite itself runs three professional air-extraction units, so you’re not standing in a fog and inhaling any solution.

A small touch people don’t expect: you’ll slip off your rings and everyday jewelry before we start, and while you’re in the suite we run them through our complimentary two-step cleaning — an ultrasonic bath to lift the buildup you can’t see, then a steam finish for the shine. You leave a little brighter than you came, jewelry included.

One thing you won’t experience: the smell. Odor-neutralizing ingredients are formulated into our solution at the production level — it’s been a top reason clients switch to us for six-plus years. Hydration works the same way: multi-weight hyaluronic acid, aloe, coconut water, and squalane are in the bottle, so nobody will offer to sell you a "hydration upgrade" on the way out. Every Bronze Lily spray tan is a hydration spray tan by formulation.

After: the develop window

This is where formula choice matters, and it’s the main decision we’ll help you make when you book:

• Signature ($45): develops over 8–12 hours. Sprayed in the evening, you shower in the morning and wake up glowing. The classic.
• Standard Rapid ($57) and Sweat-Resistant Rapid ($63): first rinse in as little as 1–4 hours — the same-day option, and the sweat-resistant version is the Florida summer workhorse.

Until your rinse: stay dry. No workouts, no rain sprints, no dishwashing marathons. Wear the loose, dark clothing home. After the rinse, the rules relax — moisturize daily and your color will carry 7–10 days. For the complete hot-weather playbook, read the Florida humidity survival guide.

The questions first-timers whisper

• "Will it stain my sheets?" Light bronzer transfer before the first rinse can happen — hence dark clothes and, if you like, older pillowcases the first night. After rinsing, no.
• "Can I get one while pregnant?" That deserves a careful answer, not a caption — we wrote one: the maternity glow guide.
• "Do guys do this?" Constantly. The men’s guide covers it.
• "What if I hate it?" Tell us before you leave and we’ll make it right in the studio — but the color is custom-matched precisely so that conversation almost never happens.

That’s everything — the whole mystery is one prep shower, twenty relaxed minutes, and a develop window. Open 7 days a week, 7 AM to 11 PM, by appointment: text (727) 218-7045 and we’ll match a formula to your week.