Salon Spotlight: Dixie Tan Spa

About Dixie Tan Spa: Dixie Tan Spa opened January 2017 in Birmingham, AL and was founded by Stephanie Kibler. Stephanie is from Texas, and a served 8 years in the military. She has a husband of 12 years, and 2 children.  Before starting Dixie Tan Spa she earned a B.S. in Marketing Management, a M.A. in Early Childhood Education, as well as certification in Life Coaching. Everything she does is for my family and to be a good role model for her children.

Describe what you do in less than 150 characters. Go. I’ve always believed that whatever you do, you should put your everything into it. I’ve also always needed a sense of purpose. Therefore, Dixie Tan Spa focuses on creating a new way of looking at beauty. Instead of denial and punishment, loving ourselves, realizing what is most beautiful is being healthy and happy.
How lovely our differences are! Spray tanning has nothing to do with telling people they aren’t the right color and has everything to do with expressing yourself with your body. Sunless tanning is also taking care of yourself, having skin for life as opposed to prematurely aging your skin, damaging it, or worse, creating cancerous cells. Educating people on the dangers of UV tanning, treating your skin and yourself delicately and getting into the habit of taking care of yourself and doing something for YOU! Swing by Dixie Tan for a mini-getaway! Steal a moment for yourself!

What was the inspiration for your career route?

My inspiration for creating Dixie Tan Spa is to change the norm. I want tanning beds and damaging your skin to be considered unattractive and seen for what it is: dangerous and permanent damage. I want spray tan to become the new norm. I want choosing to be healthy not just to look good, but to feel good to be our goal.

What is the most memorable milestone in your airbrush business so far?
Most memorable moment so far is one of my current members. She is my oldest client, but her spirit is forever young. She came in to get a tan and was very nervous about “would she be orange” and a bit skeptical. When she left, she couldn’t get over how natural her tan looked. She had came in to get a tan for a wedding. She came in on a Thursday, the wedding was that Saturday. She came back the following Tuesday and became a member. She said she had never, in her life, gotten more compliments on how beautiful she looked, how healthy she looked and she loved it! Her husband also is a HUGE fan of her spray tans!
I love it when clients are new, either concerned about the turn out of the color or a client who tans in UV beds and I change their point of view, permanently.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?
My long-term goal is to create a foundation to give back and make Dixie Tan Spa a franchise with a cause, that gives back to the local community it’s in.
Do you have any advice for other professionals considering to get started in the airbrush industry?
Evolv. Sunless Spray is THE BEST sunless tan on the market today! It’s SO natural looking and the warm air while the client gets sprayed is life-changing! Buy once, cry once; in other words..get the best product the first time and you won’t have to work too hard to build a clientele because the product will sell itself. AND…be welcoming and kind to all customers. Customer-service is EVERTHING!

What is one major challenge that you’ve had to overcome in your career? How did you overcome it?
Major challenge for me has been time-management. I’ve had to learn to schedule down-time/play-time for myself.

What is your favorite social media platform?
Favorite social media is snapchat! It’s so fun! I’m actually JUST trying to use it for work. Instagram and Facebook have been incredible, but snapchat filters crack me up!

Who’s one person you think everyone should be following on social media?
Dixie Tan Spa!!! Hahahaha!

What gives you the greatest FOMO?
Not being aware of the latest beauty trends or best practices for my skin. I wanna be young forever!

What’s your guiltiest pleasure?
Lifetime Movies, haha!

And finally, what does success look like to you?

Success to me means being able to do what you love as a career. The fact that I get to raise my children and be active in their lives, try to be a good role-model with my work ethic and then having a good time doing it all, I feel so blessed!