The annual cost of fake tan to UK hospitality laundries is now calculated at £2.2m but help is at hand, as Paul Hamilton, our Technical Director, told Tomorrow’s Cleaning.

According to the Textile Services Association, a woeful 55% of hospitality linen is discarded before it is six months old.

And the browny orange streaks and tinges associated with sunless tanning are a big reason for the ‘early exit’ of so many towels, sheets, duvet covers and pillowcases.

The fake tan craze, as more people of all genders opt for bronzed bodies, now means an about 25% of substandard linen from UK hotels is being binned due to tanning stains, compared with 20% three years ago.

At Regenex, where we revive pure whites for a range of laundry and hotel group customers, we now estimate that a quarter of bedding and towels we receive for treatment is marked by self tan.

There is no doubt that sustained demand for year-round glow remains a headache for hotel and holiday let housekeeping.

Despite the increased sophistication of product formulations, commercial laundry processes tend to ‘bake in’ stains to white bedding and towels, meaning issues continue to worsen.

And the issue is not going away, as analysts predict the value of the global self-tan market will hit £746.3m next year after growing by a steady 4.3% annually, with Britain accounting for 15.3% of this market.

Back in 2023, Regenex calculated the cost of fake tan to UK hospitality was £1.8m in ruined linens – a fifth of items discarded – and this is now circa £2.2m.

So how do we calculate this total? Well, the TSA estimates 2,000 tonnes of linen is discarded every year and 56% of all linen in commercial laundry systems is from the hospitality industry.

If we assume a quarter of the 1,120 tonnes of linen binned annually by hotels and holiday lets is marked with fake tan, that adds up to 280 tonnes – the weight of 250,000 sheets. Replacing this would cost £2.24m based on the typical cost of good quality hospitality linen typically at £8 per kilo.

Mind boggling isn’t it? When we first highlighted the problem, we grabbed the attention of national media including ITV Good Morning Britain, the broadcast show debated, should there be a fake tan tax?

Crazy as this sounds, a surcharge could be good idea – in the same way that guests pay extra for bringing their dogs on holiday, though it could be much harder to enforce.

Not everyone understands the ‘science bit’ at play, but it’s useful to know. When self tanning, the same type of reaction occurs to human skin as during the baking and roasting of meat. Fake tan or self-tan is typically manufactured with 1% dye, a significant concentration of colour. Dyes are usually synthetic and derived from petrochemicals.

While putting tan-discoloured sheets in the washing machine at home can successfully remove the colour, commercial laundry processes cannot help but ‘fix’ the stains meaning repeated washings do not remove them.

With outgoings for laundries rising across the board, from labour to replacement linen and utility bills, owners and managers are thinking harder about how they can minimise the impact of wrecked sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases and towels.

Regenex processes stained and discoloured linen for many laundries across the UK, returning good items to stock – including those marred by fake tan – that would otherwise have been condemned to rag or landfill.

Using gentle multi-bath processes and recycling and recirculating hot water on site, Regenex treatment is helping hospitality brands to save money and minimise their carbon emissions – and maybe eliminate the need for a ‘fake tan tax’.