Hello and welcome to the Rio website. My name is Joanne Smith and I am the creator of this tanning alternative.

From where I grew up a lot of people used tanning salons. My group of friends all seemed to tan this way. Naturally, I started to do the same as I did feel they looked better for using them.

At the peak of my usage, I was doing 3 x 12-minute visits per week. At the time that didn’t seem like much because I and my friends were all doing it.

After I finished my A-levels I decided I wanted to go to university to study Dermatology. I later went on to complete my PhD and worked within the field for a number of years.

Obviously, as I studied Dermatology I became more and more aware of my sunbed usage and the damage I must have done to my skin over the years. Over the months I slowly reduced the amount of time I was using tanning salons until I reached the point I was no longer using them.

I couldn’t allow myself to look pale so I looked for alternative tanning methods. The first time I applied fake tan was a disaster. I used the wrong tone and to make things worse I applied it badly. I looked like a mess haha. I hid away until the fake tan had faded.

I did slowly get the hang of it though and it looked pretty good. The downsides where obviously applying it was a pain, it stunk and it can be messy.

I’ve tried just about every alternative tanning method under the sun, such as tanning tablets, tan towels, tan tinted moisturisers, and spray tans. I find that all different tanning methods have pros and cons. I always believed that some of these methods could be improved.

I met my husband whilst at university. He went on to have a career in food supplement formulation. Due to his background and my own interests in tanning, we decided to create a tanning tablet that would be a great improvement on the current brands available.

During lots of trial and error, I feel like we have created the best tanning tablet money can buy. We are very proud of this supplement and hope that many people will love it.

Thanks for reading a little about me and how Rio was born.