One of the most common spiels you'll hear at the tanning salon is that if you're going to tan, it's "smarter" to do so in a bed as opposed to outdoors. Tanning salon employees like Heather Carrillo, who worked at a salon for a year and a half, say they are taught in their "Smart-Tan Certification" to "never say indoor tanning is 'safe' [but] to say it is 'smart.' Obviously getting a tan is not safe, so the selling point is that in a bed you can monitor the exact amount of exposure as opposed to tanning outside where the UV percentages change every day."

So is this true? Is tanning indoors smarter that outdoors due to the "controlled environment" of a bed? David E. Bank, MD, a dermatologist and founding member of The Skin Cancer Foundation, says no. In fact, he maintains that it's quite the opposite -- tanning indoors is actually more dangerous to the health of your skin because "you're getting a much higher concentration of the longer wavelength UVA, which damages more deeply into the skin" than being out in the sun. And research backs him up. "Frequent tanners using new, high-pressure sunlamps may receive as much as 12 times the annual UVA dose compared to the dose they receive from sun exposure" and are "74 percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who have never tanned indoors," says The Skin Cancer Foundation.

A disorder that means a tanned person never feels like they are "tan enough" is a real issue; one that has garnered the street term, "tanorexia."

In a study published in the "Archives of Dermatology," behavioral scientists found that a subgroup of college students who tanned indoors showed telltale signs of a substance-related disorder -- meaning they were hooked on tanning the same way people are addicted to drugs and alcohol. These frequent tanners, or "tanorexics," were also "more likely to report moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety and depression than their peers who were not addicted to tanning or did not tan at all," says Time magazine.

All of the addicted students polled knew that they could develop skin cancer from using tanning beds, but 98 percent said the risk didn't prevent them from wanting to be more tan.

"We didn't turn people away," says former tanning salon associate Carrillo. So a person could come in and use a tanning bed every day if they wanted to. "We would try and discourage people if they were already burnt, as burned skin doesn't tan, but some would still tan -- which I thought was crazy," she says. "Sometimes, we would have people sign waivers for liability if they wanted to do something that we didn't agree with, like tan for the max amount [of time] the first time they tanned," she says, but no one is ever flat-out denied, despite safety rules.

Despite the fact that the ultraviolet radiation emitted during a tanning bed session is a proven human carcinogen, the FDA lists tanning beds in the middle of the three regulatory classes for medical devices, Class II. That means currently, beds are given the same regulation as powered wheelchairs and select pregnancy tests, says The Skin Cancer Foundation. So basically, tan at your own, very high, risk.

For the most part, tanning salon employees work on commission, meaning the more tans and lotions they sell, the more they get paid. They try to sell the most expensive tan accelerating lotions, the highest UV intensity beds (which cost more then lower intensity beds), and multi-tan packages so customers are more motivated to tan more often, says Carrillo. "Also, when people would want a spray tan we would recommend that they get a base tan first from the beds, so it 'looked more natural,'" she says.