Education & Training: What You Can And Can't Say About Tanning

With the increased media exposure about the benefits of vitamin D and sunlight, many tanning salons are jumping on the bandwagon and preaching the good news to their clients. However, it is essential to remember what we can and can’t say as an industry—you certainly don’t want Big Brother to come knocking on your salon door.

Regulation

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) share responsibilities in the regulation of sunlamps and tanning devices. The FDA enforces regulations that deal with labels on the devices; the FTC investigates false, misleading and deceptive advertising claims about the devices. When these agencies determine that device labels don’t comply with the regulations or that advertisements are not truthful, they may take corrective action. The FDA also can remove products from the marketplace.

The FTC. Salon owners and operators are governed by laws that are based at the local, state and federal levels. When discussing federal guidelines, most people recognize the FDA as the main governing body. Its guidelines typically deal with the recommended manufacturing, labeling and usage of tanning equipment. However, when considering federal rules, all tanning facility owners and operators also fall under additional restrictions enforced by the FTC.

These restrictions include a variety of federal antitrust and consumer-protection laws. Arguably, the FTC’s goal is to ensure that the nation’s markets function competitively and are vigorous, efficient and free of undue restrictions.

How the FTC most affects tanning facilities is through its objective to eliminate acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive. According to the FTC, “Efforts are directed toward stopping actions that threaten consumers’ opportunities to make informed choices.”

Truth-In-Advertising

The FTC lists the following truth-in-advertising rules that apply to all advertisers.

• Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
• Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
• Advertisers cannot be unfair.

Additional laws even apply to ads for specialized products such as consumer leases, credit, 900 telephone numbers and products sold via mail-order or by telephone. In addition to FTC guidelines, all states have consumer-protection laws that govern ads running in that state.