Tanning Certification in North Carolina
Below you will find instructions for completing your training. If you have any questions now or throughout the training process, please contact us or call 888-826-7297.
- Please access your copy of the Tanning Dynamics Certification Manual by clicking here. Depending on the speed of your connection, the download may take a couple of minutes. You may also purchase the Kindle Edition of the manual from Amazon for $0.99.
- North Carolina students must also click on the following link: https://radiation.ncdhhs.gov/tanning/documents/10A%20NCAC%20.1400%2010-1-2020.pdf and read the entire regulations for Tanning Facilities.
- Read through the training material at your leisure.
- : When you feel comfortable enough to take the test, go ahead and begin. Just remember: NORTH CAROLINA TESTERS MUST SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE BOTH THE GENERAL CERTIFICATION TEST AND THE NC CERTIFICATION TEST.
- Once you successfully complete BOTH the General test AND the North Carolina test, you may download and print your certificate.
- After we receive your test results we will record the results and generate a certificate to send to you.
That’s it! If you have any questions now or throughout the training process, please contact us or call 888-826-7297. Outside the United States, please call 864-467-1967.
Required Reading for North Carolina Testers – Supplemental Training Guide for North Carolina
As is usually the case with States that have indoor tanning regulations, there are areas of concern that are unique to North Carolina. This is the reason that North Carolina’s Radiation Protection Section will not accept training certificates from any other State where this kind of certification was conducted.
That’s okay. The purpose of this supplemental guide is to cover those areas of concern that are specific to North Carolina and to help ensure that you are better prepared to successfully complete the North Carolina portion of your test. There are miscellaneous issues to address. Some are general and relevant to other issues, and some are specific and distinctive. In any case, this guide is relatively short and should be fairly easy to absorb. Let’s get started.
SESSION TIMES
You already know from your copy of the training manual that it is the operator’s responsibility to control the session time for each individual. Let’s look at this in a scenario format. What would you do if a customer was taking Psoralen, or perhaps they had come from another tanning salon where they already tanned and are trying to get a second session in? Maybe their skin is pink already from being outdoors all day, and they are trying to get some additional exposure at your shop. How much time would they be able to get at your shop today?
Hopefully, you wouldn’t allow them to tan at all under any of those circumstances. There really are times when the tanning equipment operators need to deny a tanning session to their customers. It’s not a pleasant transaction to turn down session time, but doing so prevents greater trouble down the road. Imagine what would happen if they called up or showed up with second-degree burns, with blisters on their face because you gave in to their demand for more tanning time? Who’s fault would that be? Remember that as an operator, you are authorized to deny tanning sessions when the occasion arises.
If it is your responsibility to determine whether to deny a tanning session, who would be responsible for determining the actual session time under normal circumstances? Whether the circumstance is normal or not, you would be responsible for determining the session time. The customer should never be allowed to determine their own time.
BUYING AND SELLING TANNING DEVICES
Sometimes you just have to change out or upgrade the tanning equipment at the shop. In anticipation of that upgrade, you might want to sell the older device that is currently in the tanning room. In either situation, whether buying or selling tanning equipment, the State wants to know about it. In fact, they impose a 30-day reporting time to ensure they are made aware of the change in a reasonable amount of time. That means you shouldn’t tan anyone in the new device before you report the addition of that device to your shop. In fact, until the unit has been registered with the State, it is required to be stored behind lock and key.
INSPECTIONS
You know, of course, that North Carolina’s Radiation Protection Section sends out inspectors to visit salons and make sure they are operating in compliance with State regulations. There are many things that a salon can be cited for, such as not completing all applicable spaces on a customer’s tanning profile or not providing disposable protective eyewear or any other type of approved protective eyewear, for that matter. Other examples include failure to post the radiation warning sign near each tanning unit and failure to provide documentation of lamp compatibility when different tanning lamps are used in the tanning beds device than the device label calls for.
In any of these cases, it’s always wise to read through the regulations from time to time and to prepare ahead of time by acquiring the supplies needed for your salon, such as enough pairs of eyewear to meet your customers’ needs or posting the required warning sign in each tanning room.
There are those who resent that the State comes in to inspect. Just remember that they ARE authorized to do so. Any salon that refuses the inspector to inspect could be doing themselves a disservice. In such a case, the inspector is able to secure a warrant from the local sheriff and perform the inspection with law enforcement present.
CITATIONS AND PENALTIES
This is the tough part: What do you do if the inspector cites your salon for some kind of violation? They will always require you to respond in some way or another. Is there a standard time limit to respond? Yes and no. The inspector has some latitude on response time and can require you to respond to the citation within either 15 or 30 days, depending on the severity of the violation(s) that you have been cited for. Hopefully, you will always be found in compliance and never have to deal with this side of the Radiation Protection Section.
Let’s say that a salon (not your salon, of course) gets cited for a number of violations. Is there a maximum penalty that can be placed on the salon? That’s a good question. Actually, there is a maximum penalty, and it’s not all that cheap. The State can impose a maximum fine of up to $10,000 per day for each day of non-compliance. At that rate, it wouldn’t take a long time at all to put a salon out of business. The State doesn’t routinely try to put salons out of business, so there’s no need to get worried. It reserves the heavier penalty for those salons that are determined to drag their feet when they are instructed to become compliant in accordance with the tanning regulations.
The question sometimes comes up — “Where does all that money go that the State collects from salon penalties?” It’s fair to ask this. It doesn’t go back to the Radiation Protection Section, so they’re not in some way enhancing their own income by citing and penalizing salons. The money actually helps fund the school system in the county where the violation(s) occurred.
CONSUMER STATEMENT
Along with the customer information that you collect from each prospective tanner is a consumer statement that identifies the dangers of using indoor tanning equipment. Your customers are required to read it and sign it prior to accessing any tanning equipment in your shop. This warning is also reflected on the wall in each tanning room. This way, the customer is provided access to the warning on more than just a single occasion.
PROTECTIVE EYEWEAR
You already know that you are required to provide protective eyewear to each client. If they have their own, you should inspect it for compliance. For example, if it is designed to have strings, those strings should both be attached and in decent usable condition. The regulation does not require you to give away eyewear, fortunately. That means you can sell eyewear to each client if you prefer. You can still give away disposable eyewear for free if you want. The State doesn’t take a position on this, either way. Of course, you can also loan out protective eyewear and sanitize it between uses by your customers too.
NON-CERTIFIED OPERATORS
Is there such a thing? Are salons allowed to use non-certified operators for a period of time before requiring them to become certified? It’s a common question that has been brought up in our classroom sessions over the years. The answer is “no,” technically. Let’s clarify. If anyone is not certified who is working in your salon, the only thing they are allowed to do is clean the tanning equipment — that’s it. Before they can do anything that is related to the tanning process, they have to become certified. That’s the most amount of grace that the State can offer. You can imagine the liability the State would be accepting if they allowed non-certified operators to run the tanning equipment and then someone got injured.
