Summer, the season for fake baking

Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006 | 7:11 a.m.

Renee Dawn has been tanning for, oh, about 10 years.

At first it was in tanning salons, and sometimes she would go for a while without. She could take it or leave it alone. But then, last year, she got her own tanning bed and put it in the spare bedroom.

"I started tanning just for the tan, but then it started being therapeutic. You just get to lie there and relax, listen to music, whatever," Dawn said. She paused. "But mainly it's just that you get your tan."

But why not the sun, nature's own bundle of ultraviolet rays?

"Vegas - it's just too hot," Dawn said. "We're not in California and we don't get the ocean breezes. We just die in the heat."

And in fact, local tanning salons say summer is the busiest time of year, a time when people are keen to pay to be baked or sprayed with dermal dye, all to capture that glowing summer look without all of that, you know, summer.

"The busiest season for us is when it's 120 degrees out," said Sarah Pratt, manager at Tantalizing Tanning Salon in North Las Vegas.

But when the days grow short and the temperature drops, Las Vegans don't go running for their local bake-or-paint shops to keep their tans aglow.

An afternoon's tour of Las Vegas tanning salons revealed dark and empty tanning beds, too fragile for coffins and not flat enough for quesadillas. Bored teenagers wandered around with glass cleaner and rags, wiping down the dormant beds.

The chilly months of fall and winter are the worst months for tanning salons. Blame the holidays, blame the kids going back to school, blame the decreased calls for bathing suits - business is down 50 percent at some salons. Pratt said that in the four years she has been in the business, November and December have been the worst months.

That means, she said, about 20 people are coming in for $7 worth of toaster time or a $25 coat of paint without the cancer risk. Most customers are in their 20s and 30s, club hoppers with no time to lie under the sun. (The midnight glitter set is also too busy to tan or "tan" on Fridays and weekends - Monday is more their speed.) The booths and sprayers are also indulged in by high schoolers before dances and mothers looking for time away from their kids and a cheap alternative to the spa.

There are 114 tanning salons in the 702 area code. Nationwide, indoor tanning is a $5 billion a year industry, according to a lobbying group, the Indoor Tanning Association (motto: "Founded to protect the freedom of individuals to acquire a suntan, via natural or artificial light"). The group's executive director, John Overstreet, said tanning habits vary by region. Northerners don't take an interest in their tans until February and then forsake tanning salons for the summer sun. In warmer climates, Florida in particular, tans are popular all year . He said he was surprised that summer was the busy season ."Must be the heat, huh?"

But Las Vegas' beds and airbrushes won't be idle long, Pratt said. Weddings are coming up for some people and winter cruises for others.