I fell into this job completely by accident. When I was at school, the careers adviser certainly never said, “Would you like to be a celebrity spray tanner?”
I used to work in fashion and one day I met Nichola Joss, who is the most incredible A-list facialist.
We got chatting and she said, “Jules, I think you would be an amazing spray tanner.” I had no experience in beauty but she believed in me, she trained me up and within a few months I was let loose on celebrities.
My first big job was working on The X Factor. I learned very quickly that when you’re working in TV, the tan has to look flawless. That’s when it really started to grow for me.
People would book me and say, “You’re the person that everyone talks about for creating the fake tan that looks real.”
I got poached by Strictly Come Dancing in 2012, right at the time when it was known for having this streaky orange fake tan.
I remember I met with the show’s chief make-up artist, Lisa Armstrong, and she said, “I really need this show to not be about the tan.” I told her, “I’m your man.” So we changed it and it became about the dancing again.
Doing Strictly was a crash course in tanning. I was working with so many different bodies, skin tones and ages, week in, week out. There was nothing I didn’t know about tanning by the end of it.
I learned that if you have a person with big boobs, you can’t be afraid to ask them to lift them up so you don’t get white bits.
I discovered you can’t apply fragrance right after having a tan because it breaks it down, so you have to spray scent into the hair instead. I even worked out that some of the women’s tans would develop differently depending on the time of the month.
They would tell me when they were on their period so I could adjust how much I used.
I always mimic the effect of the sun, so it doesn’t look like I’m using fake tan. But God, I got things wrong on Strictly a few times.
I put way too much body oil on a dancer once and people were slipping all over the place.
Sometimes I did have to tell people they’d had enough fake tan. You get the occasional person on Strictly who says, “I am addicted – I need another coat.” I would always play the show back to them and say, “No, you don’t!”
They didn’t always agree. So we used to do things like pretend we were tanning them but nothing was actually coming out of the spray tan gun.
Up close and personal
Tanning is a very, very personal job and you do get to know people very quickly when they’re standing in front of you stark naked. Abbey Clancy is someone I’ll always have a really nice bond with from all that time on Strictly.
Stacey Dooley has also become one of my best friends and I’ll often tan her for red carpet events. There’s never a dull moment when we’re together – naked dancing, screaming with laughter, doing at-home catwalks. We question whether we were separated at birth.
I’ve tanned Claudia Winkleman for the red carpet too. Trying to convince her that orange is not a shade choice is quite the scene, but when I win her over, the results are understated perfection.
There have been plenty of ‘pinch me’ moments in this job. So much of my work is confidential, but I remember being flown to Venice at the last minute for a private client.
They’d tried a dress on and were like, “This needs a tan. We’ll need to fly Jules out.” I never ever go to work without a spare pair of underpants, a tanning mousse, a mitt and my passport in my bag.
Getting on a gondola with my spray tan booth was a real moment. I was thinking, “How is this my life?”
I did three years as head tanner on Strictly and then I moved on to The Crown, working with Matt Smith.
I was also building my following on Instagram, where I talked a lot about body confidence. It’s something I struggled with for a long time and I knew I wasn’t alone.
So many of my clients would get undressed and instantly be like, “I’m sorry for my thighs. I’m sorry for my tummy. I’m sorry for all these stretch marks.” And I would never see what they were apologising for.
I’ve been exposed to thousands of naked bodies and I never remember anyone’s body shape, just the person they are inside.
That realisation blew my mind. It made me see life is just too short to hate how you look or pull yourself apart to want to look like somebody else – especially with images being so airbrushed.
Clients would say to me “Oh, I want to look like that celebrity” and I’d think, “That celebrity wants to look like they do in that poster! Because I’ve worked with them and they don’t look like that.”
That’s what made me see there was this huge part of the beauty industry that needed to be changed because it was so unfair to people.
Tanning was always about that one size, one shape, one skin tone. When I decided to start my own tanning brand, Isle Of Paradise, I was adamant I would use my voice for good.
The beautiful women I was working with in my spray tan booth weren’t being represented and that’s not what beauty is to me.
Fight the good fight
I had so many fights over our launch campaign, when we were the first tan brand to ever use unairbrushed images and inclusive models.
It was a time when body diversity wasn’t the norm, but I owed it to all the women I’ve worked with. I couldn’t bring out a brand that just used one type of body. When you’re shopping for a product and there’s not a model who looks anything like you, that sparks insecurity.
That is not what beauty should be about.
I knew it was the honourable thing to do, but I honestly felt my career could be over. I thought, “If people don’t get this, I’m going to leave the industry.”
But my Instagram went absolutely wild overnight with people saying, “Thank you for using a body that looks more like mine.” I’m so proud when people tell me Isle Of Paradise has made them feel empowered.
Jules Von Hep is the founder of Isle Of Paradise (theisleofparadise.com). Follow him on Instagram at @julesvonhep
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