Mist-On Tan

It started in 1997, with Dr. Tom Laughlin building a series of prototype spray booths to demonstrate the feasibility of his revolutionary new concept. In February of 1997 he tanned his first test subject, his wife Darline, from head to toe with a hand-held sprayer. In October, he tanned her in a mocked-up automated unit.

A commercial prototype spray-booth was introduced in a North Dallas tanning salon in early 1998. The first paying customer was tanned in April of that year. A second prototype unit was put in operation in North Dallas in late 1998. About 15,000 tanning sessions were done in the 18 months of operation of the prototypes.

The countdown to a million began when the first SAVY model Mist-On Tan unit (current design) was put in operation in December, 1999. It was installed in a gym in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That unit is still in operation today. Now there are over 200 Mist-On Tan units operational worldwide.

As a side note, Doc assured us that the SAVY I and the SAVY II units in the photos are pretty much to scale.

SAVY I, Dec 1999

The new SAVY II units are that much smaller than the SAVY I units. They went from 10' x 4' x 9' to 7'7" x 4'4" x 7' (length x width x height).

Although he couldn't pinpoint the one millionth tanner, we did get Dr. Laughlin to share some off-the-cuff observations with us last week. We talked at a Tex-Mex restaurant somewhere between Fort Worth and Dallas.

Using a borrowed ballpoint pen and the back of an old envelope, Dr. Laughlin made incredible projections about the future of the spray-booth tanning market. According to his estimates, there were over 3,000 Mist-On Tan sessions done every day during the months of March through July of this year.

Taking into account seasonal variations and the placement rate of new units, he calculated that considerably more than 1,000,000 tanning sessions will be performed in 2003. Assuming $20 per session retail average, the gross income at the retail level for Mist-On Tan sessions alone is over $20,000,000.

He recapped these figures in a small box lined out in the corner of his envelope. It took about 31 months (Dec '99 to July '03) to tan the first 1,000,000 Mist-On Tanners. In the 12 months of 2003, there will be a predicted 1,000,000+ Mist-On Tan sessions. Doc thinks there will be about 2,000,000 Mist-On Tans done in 2004. Go Doc!

Given lots of white space left on the back of the envelope, Dr. Laughlin expanded his projections to include other spray booths. He speculated that his licensee, Mystic Tan, will do about 2,000,000 Mystic Tan sessions in 2003. He further speculated that all the other spray-booth systems, many of which he alleges is infringing on his patents, will do a combined total of 1,000,000 spray-tan sessions. So the sum total number of spray-tan sessions for 2003 will likely be in excess of 4,000,000. Given an average session retail-price of $20 to $25, and a few bucks more for associated spray-tan products offered by some salons, the market sums up to about $100,000,000 at retail.

These numbers appeared to impress our waitress, but are still small relative to the overall tanning industry. Industry trade magazines put the size of the entire indoor tanning market at about $4.5 billion for 2002. Some quick math by Dr. Laughlin indicates a 2.2% market share for the spray-booth tan market for 2003.

Taking that big leap from projections to pure speculation, Dr. Laughlin gave his best guess for the spray-booth tan market as a whole for 2004. He thinks this market will double across the board. That would make for $200,000,000 at retail for 2004, or 4% to 5% of the entire tanning industry. What after that? Dr. Laughlin thinks the spray-booth tan market has the potential to continue doubling annually for the next several years, crossing the $1 billion dollar mark around 2006.

Interestingly, Dr. Laughlin thinks spray-booth tanning is creating a new market, not stealing market share from an existing market. In other words, the traditional indoor-tanning industry will continue to growth as it would have without spray-booth tanning. In the meanwhile, spray-booth tanning will create a new market which in a few years could rival the size of the indoor market. According to Dr. Laughlin, we could be looking at a combined $ 10 billion dollar market in just a few years.

This rapidly emerging market offers exciting
opportunities for daring entrepreneurs. There
are now over 100 stand-alone Mist-On Tan
salons. They appear to be doing quite well
as a whole, certainly way above the success
rates normally quoted for new businesses.
Dr. Laughlin suggests that all salons should
offer other products or services to compliment
the Mist-On Tan. Some of his suggestions
were high-end skin-care products, automated
massage systems, toning tables, pedicures,
manicures, suncare products and summer
apparel. These products and services could capitalize on the traffic and publicity generated by Mist-On Tan. Dr. Laughlin claims that traditional UV-tanning salons adding a Mist-On Tan unit report increases in UV-bed usage of 20% to 30%, in addition to the added income from Mist-On Tanning. He refers to the Mist-On Tan as both a compliment and alternative to UV tanning. So, will that be with or without UV.

Will that be with
or without UV?

Our waitress returned, asking for her pen back. No problem, our envelope was scribbled out anyway. So our projections terminated at that point. But, whatever the case, congratulations to that 1,000,000th Mist-On Tanner, where ever you are and whoever you are.

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