Journal
How often should you use a sunbed?
· VIP Tanning
The honest answer is less often than most people assume — and why spacing sessions actually gives you a better tan.
Ask ten people how often you should use a sunbed and you will get ten answers. Here is ours, and it is deliberately conservative.
The short version
Leave at least 24 hours between sessions, and keep your total under roughly 60 sessions a year. Never tan twice in one day.
Why 24 hours matters
A tan is not instant. When UV reaches the skin, melanin production is triggered, but the melanin takes time to move up through the layers and darken. Tan again before that has happened and you are adding exposure to skin that has not yet finished responding to the last lot.
That is how people burn while believing they are building a base.
Why more is not faster
This is the thing most people get wrong. Six short sessions spread over three weeks produce a better, deeper and longer-lasting colour than three long ones crammed into a week. The skin is a biological system with a rate limit, and you cannot rush it — you can only overshoot it.
Our unlimited packages cap you at 12 minutes a day for exactly this reason. It is not a restriction designed to save us money; it is the amount that actually works.
Before a holiday
Start three to four weeks out, not the week before. Two short sessions a week over a month will leave you with genuine colour and a lower chance of burning on day one abroad.
Bear in mind that a base tan is not meaningful sun protection — it offers roughly the equivalent of SPF 3 or 4. Take proper suncream regardless.
When to stop
If your skin is still pink from the last session, you have had too much. Wait until it has fully settled. And if you have burnt, stop entirely until the skin has completely recovered.
Read the full tanning guide for skin typing, the legal position and how modern lamps differ from older ones.
