Mum knew something had to change when spray tanning clients three days after giving birth

A mum from Croxteth in ‘took a risk’ and decided to make a brave business decision after she found herself spray tanning clients just three days after giving birth.

Jess Logue, 30, now r – Spray Tans by Jessy in Old Swan – after becoming unhappy with her old job and the gruelling demands on her time.

Recently she has become known for viral stunts including wearing a pink wig around Liverpool city centre and giving a to a snowman, to promote her brand.

However, the journey of Spray Tans by Jessy wasn’t easy. In fact the business owner found herself working two jobs around the clock and barely catching a break even after giving birth.

She previously worked as a hairdresser and it was then she became interested in doing spray tans. After completeing a barbering apprenticeship and getting a job in the industry, she realised it wasn’t what she imagined. She believed the role was heavily focussed on comission based sales, which she didn’t enjoy.

Jess told the : “There was so much focus on commission. You got paid the minimum wage and then if you wanted to earn more money you’d go on comission, so the more haircuts you’d do, the more money you’d get.

“But then it came to a point where that’s all they wanted you to do. One person working there said to me once, ‘I want you to eat, sleep and breathe haircuts, I don’t want you to be doing anything else.’

“I hated the job and thought, you know what, it’s not making me happy, and I absolutely love spray tans. I love fake tan. I always have since I was little. A spray tan just makes you feel so much better. It’s like confidences sprays onto the body. Because it made me feel like that, I wanted everyone else to feel like that.”

However, as it is with most businesses, it took time for Jess’ venture to take off, while she balanced the challenges of running her own venture on top of preparing to be a mum. She said: “I was doing it part time on evenings and weekends alongside my other job. With business it’s hard to just start off from scratch.

“You don’t get everything there and then. Later, I became pregnant as well. I was working full time Monday to Saturday and then doing spray tans in the evening until 9pm or 10pm.

“I was spray tanning three days after giving birth because the Grand National was coming up. I knew I had all these clients booked in and I didn’t want to let them down.”

As a result, Jess decided to make a change and launch her own spray tan range. She said: “I was getting too busy with bookings. I physically couldn’t fit in everyone that I wanted to, so I thought, you know what, I’m just going to bite the bullet and throw myself into it.”

The entrepreneur says her use of social media makes her business stand out in comparison to her competitiors.

She said: “Last year, I spray tanned a snowman and it just went massive. I also put a pink wig on and walked around town. You should have seen the tourists. I post videos of my everyday life and I don’t even think about it. I think people build trust with me because they see so me so mcuh and I just say it how it is.”

Although there have been many positives to Jess launching her business, she noted there were also some downsides to being your own boss.

She explained: “When you’re self-employed, you think you get so much time to yourself. But when you’re trying to build a business up, you literally work any hour that you can just to build up your clients.”

But despite the long hours, Jess is happy with how it all turned out and as well as training people to become spray tan artists, she is also preparing to launch her own tanning range with the aim of “bringing tanning solutions which other spray tan girls around Liverpool or the UK can use themselves”.

She said: “It was a big risk starting my own business but I was thinking, what’s the worst that can happen? You only get one life and you’ve just got to give it your all. You’ve got to believe in yourself, put that hard work in for what you want and you will get it.”