I'm curious with all the people that use an auto tanner and would like to know how it works and what makes it so special.
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and what makes it so special is that everything is in the owners hands, no salting and sending and praying for a good tan being returned. Oh, it works by pressurizing the tannage and water and forcing it through the skin, thus providing an even tan in far less time. There's tons of info when you hit the orange button. Some oil in it, some oil after. All personal choice. I personally love mine.
A static tan is where the hide floats in the tanning or pickle vat, take longer for the chemicals to penetrait.
The pressure tanning does this much faster by first cpmpressing the cape, this squeezes the body fluids out of the cape.
Then it becomes streched and worked with the tumbler rolls. This works the chemicals into the rest of the cape. The continued tumbling works additional chemicals into the hide setting the hiar.
Let's say you're in an indoor football stadium with a herd of one hundred pigs. The pigs naturally spread out fairly evenly in search of some real grass to root around in, and you can't smell them at all.
Now take the same herd into your living room. They are walking on top of each other and on top of you. The stink will very soon permeate your clothes and skin and before long you'll smell just like a pig.
In the pressure environment of the automatic tanner, the molecules of any substance are PACKED more closely together. This close proximity causes any chemical reaction to happen more quickly.
Another extreme example of this is a firecracker. When you light the fuse, the powder explodes because it is so tightly wound up insde the paper wrapper. If you unroll a firecracker and light the fuse, it still burns but much more slowly. No explosion and no bang.
In a nutshell, an automatic tanner speeds any chemical reaction that would take place under normal atmospheric pressure because it increases the contact of the reactants at the molecular level.
And by the way, the pressure tranfers directly to the skin surface whether the skin is submerged or not.