Building a Base Tan Before Your Holiday
Want a head start before you fly? How to build a gentle base tan the sensible way — when to start, how often, and the honest truth about what it does and doesn't do.
6 min readReviewed 24 July 2026
There's a particular kind of holiday dread reserved for the first day by the pool — pale, self-conscious, and one strong afternoon away from a burn that ruins the week. A base tan is how a lot of people take the edge off that: a gentle head start so you land with a little colour and a lot more confidence.
Done well, it's a lovely thing. Done in a rush the week before you fly, it's how people arrive sore instead of glowing. Here's how to build a sensible base in the run-up to a holiday — and one honest thing every responsible studio should tell you about what a base tan really is.
Start early, and go gently
The single biggest mistake is leaving it too late. A base tan is built the same way any good tan is — slowly, over a couple of weeks, in short sessions that build as your skin shows it's comfortable. Cramming that into three days before you fly doesn't work; it just overexposes your skin right before the sun does the same.
Give yourself two to three weeks if you can. That's enough for a handful of well-spaced sessions to establish a light, even base without ever pushing your skin. Start any later and you're better off arriving pale and being sensible in the sun than trying to force colour in a hurry.
How often to come in before you fly
A sensible rhythm is two to three short sessions a week, always with at least 24 hours between them so your skin can rest and your colour can develop. That spacing isn't a delay — it's when the tan actually happens. Back-to-back sessions the week of your holiday are exactly what leads to a burn.
Your starting time depends on your skin type, so we set it with you in studio and build gently from there. Because we sell tanning as a course — a bank of minutes you spend across visits — a pre-holiday run of short sessions fits neatly into a smaller course. Just tell the team in Corby or Kettering when you're flying and we'll help you plan the run-up.
What a base tan will — and won't — do
Here's the honest part, and we'd rather say it plainly: a base tan is not sun protection. It gives your skin only a very small amount of natural defence — nowhere near enough to rely on — so it is never a substitute for a good, high-factor sun cream, reapplied properly, once you're away. Anyone who tells you a base tan means you can skip the SPF is doing you a disservice.
What a base tan does give you is a head start and some confidence: a little colour so you're not starting from scratch, and skin that's been eased into UV gradually rather than shocked by it on day one. Treat it as a gentle warm-up, keep protecting your skin in the sun, and you get the best of both.
- Start two to three weeks before you fly, not days
- Two to three short, well-spaced sessions a week
- Always at least 24 hours between sessions
- A base tan is NOT sun protection — still wear high-factor SPF abroad
- Tell us your travel date so we can plan your minutes
Prep, aftercare and holding your colour
The usual rules make a pre-holiday tan go on evenly and last: come with clean, product-free skin, exfoliate gently the day before a session, and moisturise well in the evenings — hydrated skin both tans more evenly and holds colour longer. Protective eyewear is worn every session, as always; we provide it.
If you want your base to still be there when you land, keep moisturising right up to travel day and pack a good aftersun for while you're away. And a reminder we give everyone: you must be 18 or over to use a sunbed, and we'll always pace your sessions to your skin rather than to your flight date.