More About Sunless.com

Brief History of Sunless.com

In 1997, Clara Pettitt, a resident of Oakland, California, started a Geocities home page called "Just A Little Bit Orange," where she shared her sunless tanning tips. Her intention at the time was to improve her web site building skills. To her surprise, the information was eagerly devoured.

In 1999, the web site moved to its own domain, Sunless.com.

In the past three years, a million people have found Sunless.com without the benefit of advertising.

In 2002, the efforts of Web Developer and System Administrator David Preston improved the offerings at Sunless.com through the addition of a sunless tanning product database, a search engine, an improved message board, and the migration of static html content to the php scripting language for easier management. In 2003, Preston added a product ranking and mini-review system to the community offerings.

The People Involved

Sunless.com has no employees; all labor is donated. Clara Pettitt is the editor and designer; David Preston is the developer and system administrator. Starting in 2002, Vicki Mayhew moderates the message boards and has been the resident dark sunless tanning expert since 2000.

But most important of all are the repeat visitors who frequent the message board. They have been an endless source of encouragement and ideas: the Sunless Tanning Contest, the Photo Gallery, even the graphic that appears on this page. Through the message board, a core group of visitors have encouraged tens of thousands of people to use sunless tanners instead of harming themselves by tanning in the sun or in tanning beds.

We live for moments like this:

"I just wanted to say thank you for your wonderful web site on sunless tanning. I am another one of those extremely pale women who tried sunless tanning back in the 80s with the horrible orange results and vowed to never use sunless tanning again. However, recently, I was watching the infomercial on HSN for Tan Perfect and decided I would research on the web before ordering the stuff. Thank goodness for your page!! I found Banana Boat at a local K-mart, paid much less for it than the stuff they were selling on HSN and it worked FABULOUSLY on me!! For the first time in my life, I have a tan!! My hubby now calls me his 'bronze goddess' and I am hooked on sunless tanning. Thank you for your page!!"

"This site...is one of the absolute best, most-informative, most worthwhile ventures I have ever seen on the WWW. No kidding. I am a professional 30-year old with a healthy fear of skin cancer but no desire to go out in public wearing my natural skin color. My brother wanted to re-up at our favorite tannery (our spring ritual) but good sense finally kicked in and I told him I wanted to check out self-tanners. His response was to laugh and tell me he thought they were all about orange. After a bit of digging, I was disheartened to find that most online sites did not offer any type of in-depth info and it looked like without the proper arsenal of products, I was likely to return to the tried-and-true cancer institute known as my local tanning place. BUT WAIT! I stumbled upon your site, printed every last bit of info, and at this very moment my brother and I are sorting through it to figure out what to order and then we're off to cyber-shop for our healthy spring glow! THANK YOU from the bottom of our melanoma-free hearts!"

Technology Used

Sunless.com wheezes along on an elderly GNU/Linux server owned by Llamacom.com which is connected to the Internet via tin cans and string [but they do offer unlimited downloads for $19.95 a month]. A majority of the site was straight html; however, we are at long last moving to shiny content using the php scripting language and keeping our data in the fast and free database MySQL. These technologies back the Sunless.com Phorum message board system and the Sunless Tanning Product Database [MikoMatic].

Database: www.mysql.com
Scripting language: www.php.net
Search engine: www.swish-e.org
Overlib: www.bosrup.com/web/overlib
Mail server: www.exim.org
Linux for development: www.slackware.com
CVS: www.cvshome.org
CheckBot: degraaff.org/checkbot
Message Boards: www.phorum.org

Other groovy inspiration for when browsers suck less:
All CSS all the time: www.bluerobot.com

How We Are Financially Supported

All income comes from affiliate program revenue. The total gross income of Sunless.com was $6,000 in 2001. After buying products for testing [$1,500], paying for web site hosting and DSL [$1,000 or so], post office box [$170], and taxes [$1,500], there was about $2,000 left over. Income was slightly lower in 2002. So we call ourselves a "not for profit" web site. All labor is donated.

If this web site has helped you, you can help support it by going to the bottom of the page and contributing a couple of bucks through the Amazon Honor System. Or visit the Sunless.com Store.

Some of our affiliates, notably TanForLess.com and AuCourant.com, have been extremely supportive, donating prizes for the Sunless Tanning Contest and just generally being terrific. Barb, Eric, Susan, and Cesar: Thanks!

Sunless.com has joined affiliate programs sponsored by these companies:

Aucourant.com
Avon.com
Amazon.com
BeachBody.com
CosmeticMall.com
DERMAdoctor.com
drugstore.com/beauty.com
ebates.com
HSN.com
Sephora.com
Skinstore.com
Strawberrynet.com
TanForLess.com
ULTA.com
Vitaminshoppe.com
Zirh.com

Contact Sunless.com

Physical mailing address:
Sunless.com
P. O. Box 26590
San Francisco CA 94126-6590

Email:
Clara Pettitt: clara AT sunless DOT com
David Preston: support AT sunless DOT com
Vicki Mayhew: vicki AT sunless DOT com

Press Coverage

Clara Pettitt is available for phone interviews, which can usually be arranged within 24 hours. Please note, however, that Sunless.com does not have statistical data for the sunless tanning industry such as gross annual sales, etc. You have to pay for that kind of stuff.

Sunless.com has been covered by national magazines including U.S. News and World Report, Mademoiselle, Muscle & Fitness, BBW Magazine, and Weight Watchers. Newspaper coverage: Reuters News Service, Detroit Free Press, TimesDaily, The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune. TV coverage: NBC5 News in Chicago, the X Show, UPN 9 News in New York.

Copyright

All Contents Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Clara Pettitt and David Preston. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Clara Pettitt or David Preston is prohibited.

Sunless.com zealously protects its content because our sole business is providing content. This copyright includes all text, all images, and all photographs.

If you are a doctor, feel free to use any of the information on this web site for the benefit of your patients. While it is acceptable to print out individual copies for patients, do not redistribute information published on this web site in any other fashion without receiving written permission from clara AT sunless DOT com.

Request removal of trademarked images for any reason whatsoever by sending an email to clara AT sunless DOT com.

Manufacturers who wish to quote briefly from a product review at Sunless.com are free to do so.

Anyone may link to Sunless.com.

Sunless Tanning Product Database

Only products used by Sunless.com and its visitors are listed in the database.

Samples of sunless tanning products for testing/reviewing purposes are cheerfully accepted. What's a sample? One or two standard containers. Less is insufficient; more is gratuitous. Before sending a sample, be warned that only easily purchased products are reviewed. If you have the best sunless tanner in the world, but only one store in Florida, we don't want to hear about it. The emails that follow are just too painful. If you need a guinea pig for a new and improved sunless tanner not yet for sale that is a whole other story.

Samples of tanning pills will be exposed to public ridicule.

Mailing address:
Sunless.com
P. O. Box 26590
San Francisco CA 94126-6590

Reminder: UPS and Federal Express do not ship to Post Office boxes. Please use the U.S. Mail.

Sunless.com has received sunless tanning products from the following companies: John Abaté International, Au Courant, Biddiscombe, BodyEncounters.com, California North, Fake Bake, Fantasy Tan, The Good Life People [Iced Bronze], Jan Tana, Jan Tana West, LotionsOnline.com, Oleda, OPT, Paula's Choice, Safe Tan, Strong Products [Beach], TanForLess.com.

Shopping Guide

The primary purpose of the shopping guide is to provide Sunless.com visitors with a comprehensive guide to sources of sunless tanning products, not to promote web sites selling sunless tanning products. Sites will be listed at the discretion of Sunless.com. Only text links are used.

Your web site will be listed in the shopping guide if it meets the following criteria:

1. Your web site must sell sunless tanning products (through telephone ordering, online ordering, merchant look-up, catalog)
2. You must offer standard payment options such as Visa or Mastercard
3. You must not charge hugely inflated shipping/handling fees
4. You must send an email to clara AT sunless DOT com and ask her to list your web site

At any given time, no more than three web sites will be listed as an online ordering source for each product. The web sites will be listed in alphabetical order. If there are more than three eligible web sites, they will be chosen on the basis of ease of navigation [no frames], product variety, and payment/shipping options offered. Exceptions will be made if needed for large product lines. Sites offering international shipping are preferred.

Not eligible for listing:

Personal web pages owned by representatives of cosmetic companies such as Avon, Beauticontrol, Mary Kay, Neways, Amway, and so on. Because there are just so dang many.

Advertising

Sunless.com accepts only standard 468 x 60 pixel size ads, and the ad has to be at the bottom of the page. Currently, Sunless.com displays banner ads only through the assorted affiliate programs we have joined. If you are interested in submitting an ad, email clara@sunless.com.

Privacy Policy

Sunless.com does not sell or distribute information gathered from visitors to this web site, including email addresses.

Acknowledgements

Sunless.com would like to thank:

Our friends and family
Leili Eghbal
Joshua O'Keefe
Michael Vickers
Frank Vickers
The Colonel

Paula Begoun, who sets the standard for consumer advocacy.

Without Miss Saigon, we would have starved to death long ago.

Special thanks to the O'Reilly cult for their fine books.