nudeFX owner Jessica Lee (Photo by Ianne Salvosa)
Using her COVID stimulus check, Jessica Lee bought her first spray tan machine in 2020.
She first offered tans to her friends and family in Fredericksburg as a hobby, before growing it into nudeFX, a regional tanning salon chain that continues to be in expansion mode.
Last month Lee opened her third nudeFX location, this time in The Fan at 1417 W. Main Street. While Lee is no stranger to the brick and mortar, her newest spot is her first full-scale salon and her largest space yet.
The two other locations include shared salon suites in Fredericksburg at 614 Caroline Street and in Midlothian at 1104 Winterlake Court, which each have one spray tan room. nudeFX used to operate in two rooms in the Hive Salon Studios in Scott’s Addition, a collaborative beauty rental, but Lee wanted to expand her salon to its own space.
nudeFX’s new building in the Fan
“I just wanted to be in the heartbeat of what I felt like were the best and brightest local businesses,” Lee said of her move to the Fan District.
She said the expansion of nudeFX fits into the growing population of Richmond and fills a hole in the local beauty market, which lacks a salon solely dedicated to spray tanning and is not a franchise. She added that the growth of her business occurred concurrently with the development of more natural tanning products in the past five to seven years.
Other tanning salons in Richmond include Palm Beach Tan, a national chain, and a few salons offer tanning as one of their services including Bombshell Brazilian Waxing and Beauty Lounge and Wink Beauty and Brow Bar.
Since opening on Main Street on June 18, she and her team have serviced around 200 clients.
The Fan location is 1,500 square feet with four tanning rooms. nudeFX is located on the first floor and apartment units take up the second floor of the building. It appears the space used to be the office for TerraFirma Roofers.
Lee rents a room in the back of the salon to Full Circle, a permanent jewelry business. The room is the second location for Full Circle and first studio for walk-ins and appointments. Full Circle also hosts pop-ups and has their first location in Midlothian at owner Krista Robbins’ home office.
nudeFX clients pay $60 for a customized tan, choosing between light, medium or dark shades, and can select a solution that develops in a standard 8 hours or an express solution that develops in 1-4 hours. nudeFX also offers discounts for first-time tanners, birthdays and two client sessions, as well as special packages for brides.
Group tans cost $55 each for three to four people, $50 each for five to seven people and $48 each for a group of eight. Clients can also pay $10 for a face tan. nudeFX currently offers a mobile service, best suited for groups, but Lee said she plans to phase out the mobile offering by the end of the month since the new salon can accommodate larger groups.
Photo courtesy nudeFX
While some may choose to buy a tanning solution off the shelf, Lee said nudeFX offers a higher quality tan tailored to the client’s skin using Sjolie spray tanning solution.
“I take seriously what I choose to put on people’s skin,” Lee said.
Lee said she carefully selected her location in The Fan to suit her typical client base of women ages 25 to 45. Many of her clients tend to seek out her services prior to weddings and other large events like galas and vacations.
She chose a location near the highway so clients who live in the suburbs could easily access her salon. Safety was also a top priority for Lee, given her mainly female client base, so she chose a spot with well-lit parking spaces where clients would feel safe walking from their cars to the salon.
nudeFX has 12 employees total, with five at the Fan location, four in Fredericksburg and three in Midlothian. Spray tanning is an intimate service where clients have to strip down to fully coat their body, so Lee seeks to recruit employees skilled at making guests feel comfortable. Two of her employees are former clients.
“I think finding the right people that are able to make people feel comfortable is the biggest challenge, but the girls that I have, I’m really lucky they’re all amazing and really have it,” she said. “They all feel really fulfilled by this job whether it’s full time or part time.”
Lee graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in public relations. Prior to launching nudeFX, she worked as a public relations account executive for NJF in New York City.
In July 2020, she was laid off and moved back to her hometown of Fredericksburg. With a lifelong interest in beauty, she decided to take after her father, an entrepreneur, and picked up the spray tan business after watching a spray tan trainer video on YouTube.
Despite switching industries, Lee found her marketing and accounting skills from her public relations degree to be transferable to her business. She said she thought spray tanning would be her side gig during the pandemic, but she soon accumulated clients and decided to work in the spray tanning industry full time.
“I thought if it doesn’t work out business-wise, I’ll spray tan my mom and my sister and my friends for our big events and that’ll be it,” Lee said. “Since then it’s been a pretty wild four years from that to where we are now.”
nudeFX owner Jessica Lee (Photo by Ianne Salvosa)
Using her COVID stimulus check, Jessica Lee bought her first spray tan machine in 2020.
She first offered tans to her friends and family in Fredericksburg as a hobby, before growing it into nudeFX, a regional tanning salon chain that continues to be in expansion mode.
Last month Lee opened her third nudeFX location, this time in The Fan at 1417 W. Main Street. While Lee is no stranger to the brick and mortar, her newest spot is her first full-scale salon and her largest space yet.
The two other locations include shared salon suites in Fredericksburg at 614 Caroline Street and in Midlothian at 1104 Winterlake Court, which each have one spray tan room. nudeFX used to operate in two rooms in the Hive Salon Studios in Scott’s Addition, a collaborative beauty rental, but Lee wanted to expand her salon to its own space.
nudeFX’s new building in the Fan
“I just wanted to be in the heartbeat of what I felt like were the best and brightest local businesses,” Lee said of her move to the Fan District.
She said the expansion of nudeFX fits into the growing population of Richmond and fills a hole in the local beauty market, which lacks a salon solely dedicated to spray tanning and is not a franchise. She added that the growth of her business occurred concurrently with the development of more natural tanning products in the past five to seven years.
Other tanning salons in Richmond include Palm Beach Tan, a national chain, and a few salons offer tanning as one of their services including Bombshell Brazilian Waxing and Beauty Lounge and Wink Beauty and Brow Bar.
Since opening on Main Street on June 18, she and her team have serviced around 200 clients.
The Fan location is 1,500 square feet with four tanning rooms. nudeFX is located on the first floor and apartment units take up the second floor of the building. It appears the space used to be the office for TerraFirma Roofers.
Lee rents a room in the back of the salon to Full Circle, a permanent jewelry business. The room is the second location for Full Circle and first studio for walk-ins and appointments. Full Circle also hosts pop-ups and has their first location in Midlothian at owner Krista Robbins’ home office.
nudeFX clients pay $60 for a customized tan, choosing between light, medium or dark shades, and can select a solution that develops in a standard 8 hours or an express solution that develops in 1-4 hours. nudeFX also offers discounts for first-time tanners, birthdays and two client sessions, as well as special packages for brides.
Group tans cost $55 each for three to four people, $50 each for five to seven people and $48 each for a group of eight. Clients can also pay $10 for a face tan. nudeFX currently offers a mobile service, best suited for groups, but Lee said she plans to phase out the mobile offering by the end of the month since the new salon can accommodate larger groups.
Photo courtesy nudeFX
While some may choose to buy a tanning solution off the shelf, Lee said nudeFX offers a higher quality tan tailored to the client’s skin using Sjolie spray tanning solution.
“I take seriously what I choose to put on people’s skin,” Lee said.
Lee said she carefully selected her location in The Fan to suit her typical client base of women ages 25 to 45. Many of her clients tend to seek out her services prior to weddings and other large events like galas and vacations.
She chose a location near the highway so clients who live in the suburbs could easily access her salon. Safety was also a top priority for Lee, given her mainly female client base, so she chose a spot with well-lit parking spaces where clients would feel safe walking from their cars to the salon.
nudeFX has 12 employees total, with five at the Fan location, four in Fredericksburg and three in Midlothian. Spray tanning is an intimate service where clients have to strip down to fully coat their body, so Lee seeks to recruit employees skilled at making guests feel comfortable. Two of her employees are former clients.
“I think finding the right people that are able to make people feel comfortable is the biggest challenge, but the girls that I have, I’m really lucky they’re all amazing and really have it,” she said. “They all feel really fulfilled by this job whether it’s full time or part time.”
Lee graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in public relations. Prior to launching nudeFX, she worked as a public relations account executive for NJF in New York City.
In July 2020, she was laid off and moved back to her hometown of Fredericksburg. With a lifelong interest in beauty, she decided to take after her father, an entrepreneur, and picked up the spray tan business after watching a spray tan trainer video on YouTube.
Despite switching industries, Lee found her marketing and accounting skills from her public relations degree to be transferable to her business. She said she thought spray tanning would be her side gig during the pandemic, but she soon accumulated clients and decided to work in the spray tanning industry full time.
“I thought if it doesn’t work out business-wise, I’ll spray tan my mom and my sister and my friends for our big events and that’ll be it,” Lee said. “Since then it’s been a pretty wild four years from that to where we are now.”