We recently connected with Brittany Maurer and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Brittany, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mission when starting my business was to create an experience like they had never had before. I grew up in the tanning beds are life era, where everyone desired to have that deep dark tan no matter what the cost or damage was to our skin. The typical tanning salon experience when you walked in you were greeted by a girl who didn’t even look like she was old enough to have a job, who pushed super expensive but cheaply made tanning lotions and tried to convince you to purchase a membership. The business model was sell, sell, sell instead of creating a memorable customer experience. Flash forward to now when spray tans are more popular than tanning beds, but they bring on a whole different type of experience. In traditional tanning beds you’re in a room by yourself versus a spray tan you’re stripping down basically naked in front of a stranger creating a completely vulnerable experience. When I had worked for a previous spray tanning company, I had witnessed first-hand how the technicians’ attitude and how they spoke to the client could either make the experience more comfortable or leave the client feeling body shamed and traumatized to the point that they never wanted to do it again.

After witnessing such a toxic client experience, I set out to do better and be different. I wanted to create a safe environment that a client would NEVER feel ashamed for their bodies or uncomfortable during their sessions. We have house rules and positive messages all over our salon, our staff are all trained to speak love towards our clients and strive to make them feel as comfortable as possible (as comfortable as you could possibly be being naked in front of someone) and giving our clients a truly luxurious experience from beginning to end.

Our mission statement is Our Mission is to empower you by helping you feel confident and to UNLEASH your inner Bronzed Beauty. By having a statement like this its not about forcing our clients to look a certain way to fit a typical stereotype but instead to help them Unleash their inner beauty by making them feel beautiful and confident in their own skin.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into this industry just by chance. I had been the full-time caregiver for my grandmother and had a toddler son at the time and after she had past, I didn’t want have to go back to work all the time and be away from him. I was looking for a job that had a more flexible schedule and a friend of mine had told me that a spray tanning company was hiring, so I applied, got the job and worked for them for about a year. I fell in love with the spray tanning industry and the feeling that I would give my clients however, I did not love who I was working for, so I quit. It was not an easy decision because I loved what I was doing so much but I could not deal with the way that the company treated the employees and the clients. I decided to purchase my own machine and products so that I could continue to keep myself glowing and my friends and family. This decision to do it as just a “hobby” quickly turned into I need to hit the ground running and turn this into an actual job and business when word got out that I was tanning people in my grandmothers garage and I kept getting more and more clients.

At the Bronzed Beauty Bar, we offer spray tanning, teeth whitening, non-invasive body sculpting and an infrared sauna. We also have a team of other business owner boss babes that offer waxing, facial, ear piercing and eyelash extensions. We are always adding services as well to cater to our clients and to keep up with all the trends! Continued education is so important to me. When I created my storefront location, I knew that I wanted to bring in other business babes so that we could offer even more services to our clients, but I also wanted to help other woman in the beauty industry grow their businesses and give them a opportunity to work not just in a glamours space but a space that has a positive mission to provide the best experience as well.

I think the problem that we solve for our clients is helping them conquer their fears and that they do deserve to feel beautiful and confident in their own skin. What sets us apart is the way that we make our clients feel comfortable coming here. We have heard from so many of our clients that they have gone to other places and never wanted to return to those businesses and some who never even wanted to try that service again because of the bad experience that they had, until they read our reviews. It was our own clients’ testimonials who convinced them to come here and give it another try.

I am the proudest of being able to say that I started my business in the garage of my grandmother’s house, to now having the most beautiful storefront location so that I can welcome in even more people to experience our salon. The main things that I want clients to know about us is that we are different, that the people behind creating the salon are so hardworking and dedicated to creating such a memorable experience and that I love my business and value my clients. So many of my clients have become friends over the years because we don’t see our clients as just dollar signs. We genuinely care about or clients and want to get to know them. We want to hear about your wedding after we tanned you for it, or that vacation.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Yes! This question is me to a T, I started my company after leaving a toxic job working for another spray tanning company, convinced my husband to let me invest over $1,000 on some products and equipment so that I could keep up with tanning myself and my friends and family. After a few months of doing that, I kept getting calls and texts that a friend sent me can you tan me too? I remember looking at him one night saying hey, I think I can really turn this into a business. His response was ok, lets try it, basically what do we have to lose? So, I started advertising, came up with a business name, and got some cards and started hustling. When we had to relocate and were looking to purchase our first home together my one “must have” for our new house was it has to have a place I can do spray tans. When we found our “perfect home” I set up shop in one of the extra bedrooms and continued to spray tan there for over 7 years. During this time there were so many times that I wanted to open a permanent location, I had searched and searched and dreamed about opening a storefront location. At one point I had even started the process to purchase a already established tanning salon, but every time I thought it was going to work out something would happen and I knew it wasn’t the right time. I had faced so many challenges during my business that I thought were the worst thing to happen then Covid hit. I had no idea if I would be able to survive, but instead of being down I used this time to focus on making my business come out even stronger. I used my down time to rename and re brand my business, I took every free business seminar that was online, I got trained and certified to offer new services and set my focus on opening a storefront location. In January of 2021 I had found my PERFECT location! The negotiating part almost broke me and took 5 months of going back and forth but in May of 2021 I got the keys to my very own storefront! We spent 3 months remodeling, renovating and with lots of blood, sweat, and tears, started taking clients in August and had our official grand opening celebration in October. When I started my business, I worked 7 days a week and sometimes even 12 hours a day, now I am proud to say that I have 2 employees and I work 2 days a week so I can spend more time with my kids and husband. By creating this dream salon, I now can now step back to spend time with my family and give job opportunities to other people.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I have had to pivot with my business many times. Being a business owner, you are constantly having to come up with new ways and ideas to bring in clients. You have to stay up with all the market trends, new beauty trends, social media platforms and so much more! By far though the biggest pivot I have experienced in my business was Covid. So many businesses were closing their doors forever and I refused to be one of them. I worked so hard during that time to learn and grow and set out to take advantage of the situation and negotiated to incredible deal to open up my storefront location. I used an unfortunate and scary situation as fuel to grow instead of wasting that precious time I had stuck at home.       

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bronzedbeautybar.coom
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebronzedbeautybar/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebronzedbeautybar
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bronzed-beauty-bar-chino