Salon offers free tans in reaction to body-shaming stories
A Scottish beauty salon has been offering free spray tans to clients in a bid to promote body confidence after a body-shaming post from an Australian spray tanner went viral.
She is Beauty salon in Giffnock offered free spray tans for a week (February 25 to March 4) in a bid to help customers feel comfortable having these treatments, and has since been praised for the thoughtful gesture.
The bold and generous initiative by the UK salon was in reaction to a text exchange that has been shared widely on social media, where a spray tanner in Australia tells her client that she will have to charge her more for a spray tan service because of her size.
The direct-message exchange, which was screenshotted but with the names blocked out, shows the tanner asking the client what size she is, with the customer replying, “Oh haha, I’m a size 10–12 AU. Why is that?”
The tanner replies: “My regular clients are a max size eight. It’ll be $20 extra as there’s more surface area if you know what I mean”, adding, “If you don’t want to pay a $20 surcharge maybe lose a little! Not trying to be mean, it’s just the industry.”
Image: screenshot of the text exchange between the Australian spray tanner and her client
She is Beauty was outraged and wanted to prevent clients being put off from having tanning treatments, with a spokesperson commenting on social media: "I recently saw this picture going around on Facebook and I am totally disgusted by it.
"This girl claims that things like this are part of the industry, I'm not sure what industry she is in but it’s definitely not the same one as us. No matter what your age or size is, you will never be made to feel uncomfortable within our salon. So, as my way of an apology for this girl’s ignorance I am offering free spray tans to everybody for the whole week – beginning 25th February.”
Many of the industry’s elite have been reacting to the spray tanner’s viral exchange in the past week, with the likes of celebrity tanner Jules Von Heptonstall commenting: “I am beyond upset by this. Whoever this spray tanner is deserves unspeakable things. This is not industry standard, you should never ever be charged more or less because of your body shape."
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Lead image: this is a stock image and used for illustration purposes only.