Texas woman with Skin Type No. 2 goes into tanning salon. Then she makes a strange request: ‘I’m in pageants’

Taste is a funny thing. One person's yuck is very much another's yum. If people want to spend their money in unfathomable ways, that's their prerogative. But is the customer truly always right?

One business owner is going viral after she was confronted with a difficult choice. Namely, to pick between prioritizing her own standards and pleasing a customer.

‘I don't want to turn you orange'

Taylor McLain (@bottledbronze), who owns the Fort Worth, Texas-based spray tan salon Bottled Bronze, posted a video detailing a bizarre interaction she'd had with a customer. The video has since accumulated more than 382,000 views.

“I've been tanning for almost 10 years,” McLain said. “And I would say like a week ago… this young girl comes in, she's super beautiful, like in her early 20s. And she said … ‘I have a really big problem.'”

The customer told McLain that she's struggled “to find a spray tan place lately that can get [her] dark as [she wants] to go.” McLain noted in response that the customer, who already had a spray tan on, already looked “really, really dark.” She asked the customer to show her a picture sans spray tan, so she could “see the difference.”

“So she shows me, and she is like a skin type 2 … she's kind of in the fair range,” McLain said, referencing the skin type categorization used by tanning salons. “I said, ‘Well, do you have a photo of something where you've had a really dark tan that you really loved?' And she goes, ‘Yes, let me show you … I'm in pageants. I like to be really, really dark.'”

The customer showed her a picture. And it was “the most orange” McLain had “ever seen somebody” be “in [her] life.”

“I said, ‘Hey, can I be honest with you? … This doesn't look good,'” McLain said. “And she said, ‘I like to be orange.' Like, looked me dead in my eyeballs and said that. In my almost decade of doing this, I haven't never, never heard anybody say that.”

McLain tries to discuss the tan with her client

McLain, who said she was “baffled” and “shocked,” tried to give the customer alternatives. She explained she was experienced in tanning professional dancers who frequently tan for competitions. But the customer doubled down. She said that the orange tone was exactly what she wanted, and wanted to know if McLain would oblige.

“I started thinking about it for a second, and … the old me would have said, ‘Hell no,'” McLain said. “Because I don't want anybody telling anybody that they got that kind of tan from Bottled Bronze, from me.”

But ultimately, McLain decided to accommodate the customer's request, even if it wasn't to her own tastes.

“I said, ‘I'm going to be honest with you, I don't want to turn you orange,'” McLain said. “I want you to have a nice dark tan, but if this is what you want, this is your money. Like, you're paying for it … If you want to look orange, I can make that happen.”

In an email to Buzz News, McLain mused on how unique of a request this was, and the subsequent virality she enjoyed upon sharing it.

“I think the video resonated because a lot of people still assume that spray tans will turn them orange, when that's actually one of the biggest misconceptions about our industry,” McLain wrote. “A professionally applied spray tan should enhance your natural skin tone and create a beautiful, brown, believable glow similar to a natural tan from the sun. As spray tan artists, we're constantly trying to avoid an orange result, which is why this was such an unexpected and funny scenario to share.”

@bottledbronze What would you do as a spray tan artist #spraytan #spraytanartist ♬ original sound – Taylor | Bottled Bronze

Why do some spray tans come out orange?

While most of the viewers in McLain's comment section were cracking jokes about the customer's request, some were curious about the logistics of fulfilling said request. One fellow spray tan worker chimed in and wondered how McLain could achieve an orange glow.

“As a spray tan artist who buy solutions to specifically avoid orange, how would one accomplish this?” the worker wrote. McLain responded, “1) Oversaturate them 2) High DHA % for their skin type 3) Sleep in a rapid 4) Combo of all three.”

DHA, or dihydroxyacetone, is the primary active ingredient used in most spray or self-tanners. According to Norvell Tanning, DHA “is nothing more than a simple sugar (a triose) often derived from plant sources such as sugar beets, and sugar cane.”

“This ingredient works by a chemical reaction with dead skin cells to create the appearance of a naturally tanned skin,” Norvell Tanning writes. “DHA reacts solely with the amino acids in the … outer most layer of the skin. This … produces cyclic and linear polymers called melanoidins, which gives skin a natural tan appearance. Melanoidins have a brown color that is similar to melanin that is naturally produced by UV rays.”

However, too much DHA in a tanning solution can cause an orangey look, especially for people with fairer skin. Tanning salon Lusso Professional says on its website that “Most orange outcomes come from one or more of these issues: Using a DHA percentage too high for the client's skin tone; poor skin prep (old tan residue or oil buildup); leaving rapid solutions on for too long; using expired or oxidized tan solution.”

Lusso Professional advises customers to exfoliate before a tan and rinse it off when instructed. The website adds that choosing the correct DHA percentage for your skin tone prevents a fake tan from turning orange.