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Tanning Beds versus Tanning Booths: What's the Difference?

It's the middle of winter and you happen to live in an area
that gets absolutely no sunlight during these cold, bleak
months. If you are tired of having pasty skin and want to
get a bit of color, you are probably looking to get a bit of a tan back into your skin. You've heard about tanning beds and tanning booths, and people often use these two names interchangeably from one another � but there are differences between the two.

Wattage

A tanning bed has less wattage than a booth. Tanning beds
generally have 100 watts of light, whereas booths use almost twice as much. Tanning booth wattages may differ from business to business, but they generally are some where around 160 watts.

Why do watts matter? The higher the watt count, the higher the exposure to light a user will experience per minute. A higher wattage does not necessarily mean that you will tan faster or have a �better� tan by any means, however. For example, tanning beds have a reflector system that is built in to the bed itself to help focus and direct the UV exposure, so that the user gets a thorough tan. A booth will use VHO-R lamps, which have a built in reflector system in the lamp itself which will force the light to exit through the front of the lamp.

Exposure

The next important thing to look at is the amount of UV
exposure that you will receive. Beds will provide any user
with less exposure per minute than a tanning booth, which is also why one will usually be in a tanning bed for 15 to 20 minutes trying to catch a tan, whereas booth users are only in thee for 10 to 15 minutes.

Positioning

Beds and booths require you to be positioned differently to
get that gorgeous glowing skin. A booth will require for you to stand up. This enables you to get that 360 degree thorough and even tan. Most booths also come equipped with handles so that you can lift your arms and tan under your arms.

Beds, on the other hand, do not offer that ability. Tanning
beds require you to lie down and do not offer you the ability to move about, meaning that there are parts of your body that will be unexposed and therefore not be tanned. Some also argue that lying down in a tanning bed changes the blood flow in our bodies, which can result in you having an uneven tan.

Expense

Though prices will differ from business to business, given the amount of power and the space that a tanning booth takes up, you can usually expect to pay more for a tanning booth than a tanning bed. This is also the reason why tanning beds are more popular and easily found when compared to tanning booths.

Health Risks

No matter what you choose, booth or bed, you are still
exposing yourself to UV rays which come with a handful of
associated health risks, such as cancer, lowered immune
function, and it accelerates the aging process.