Sally grew up in England as a very pasty white girl. Throughout her teenage years she experimented with every self tanning cream and potion with varying results. Every year, the shops in the English high streets would be flooded with glorious summer styles (even though it had just rained) and Sally would slap on her self tanner. Since childhood she has had the kind of skin that refused to tan - she just got red and burned.
As a young adult, Sally moved to New York City. Somehow or other she became madly passionate about Ballroom and Latin dancing. Some magazines have written that Sally used to be a professional ballroom dancer - this isn't actually true - she is an amateur - she loves dancing but is not that brilliant at it...However, her husband is an amazing professional dancer and you can see him in the movie "Mad Hot Ballroom". (His name is Alex Tchassov).
Now - competitive ballroom dancing has a very interesting aesthetic - you basically have to look really, really tan. Kind of like how in dog shows poodles have to look like topiaries, in ballroom dancing competitions people have to look extra swarthy. As Sally got more and more into ballroom dancing she noticed how even the palest girls were able to morph themselves into exotic bronzed creatures. As she poked around in her research she found that at the average ballroom dancing competition there were all sorts of self tanners available for sale that a normal person waltzing through Sephora or Duane Reade would never have even heard of.
One year (2002 to be precise) Sally was at the world championships for Ballroom dancing in Blackpool England. Sally happened to be reading some trashy magazine and in it was an article about "airbrush tanning". She had never heard about this process before - and looking down at her ivory thighs, and looking on the dance floor at the cocoa colored girls in skimpy costumes Sally had an "Aha!" moment. She was determined to get some airbrush tanning for herself and was sure it might be a brilliant business idea for her to take an airbrush tanning machine to all of the dance competitions she visited.
As soon as she got back to New York she tried to find a place to get an airbrush tan. It didn't exist so she started doing research up the kazoo. One month later Sally had opened a tiny salon and true to her plan spent most weekends scurrying around America to one dance competition or another. At first she was using a commercially available airbrush formula - however it was highly perfumed and made her sick. Back to the drawing boards she went - and working with a laboratory she came up with her own exclusive formula.
