Inside goGLOW's Red-Hot California Debut

"I love that goGLOW puts skincare first it’s beauty with a purpose," Glanville said at the event. She wasn’t wrong. And the Valley heard her.

Since the launch, goGLOW Sherman Oaks has become the most talked-about new beauty address in the San Fernando Valley. The studio is run by local franchise owner Dave Spare, with founder and CEO Melanie Richards flying in for the grand opening to personally introduce the brand to Los Angeles. Artist Klypso spun the music. Champagne flowed. Gift bags went out. And the Glow Bar, a product-sampling concept that lets guests experience the brand’s skincare line before committing to a session, made its public debut.

But the party was just the beginning. What’s kept people coming back is the experience itself. Here’s the thing about goGLOW that separates it from every other spray tan place in LA: it’s not really a spray tan place. The brand treats sunless tanning as skincare. Every session starts with a pH-balancing prep that coats the skin and corrects dry patches before a single drop of solution touches you. Then, a trained Glow Artist, not an employee with a spray gun, hand-applies a custom-blended formula matched to the client’s skin tone. The solutions are proprietary, vegan, paraben-free, sulfate-free, cruelty-free, and infused with antioxidants and botanicals. No odor. No streaking. No orange.

It’s not a spray tan, as the brand’s tagline goes. It’s a goGLOW.

Clients can choose between a traditional rinse window of twelve to twenty-four hours for a deeper, gradual build, or a rapid option that lets you rinse in three to five hours and still get the same quality result. There are light glow and deep bronze options, VIP and Elite membership tiers with perks and retail discounts, and a full line of take-home skincare products designed to extend the glow and protect the skin between sessions. The Glow Artists also coach clients on prep, maintenance, and long-term skin health, which is wildly uncommon in a category that historically just sprays you and sends you home.

The woman behind all of it is Melanie Richards, and her story is one of the more unexpected founder narratives in the beauty industry. Before she launched goGLOW, Richards worked as a probation officer and domestic violence advocate, protecting and empowering women in an entirely different context. That focus on care, safety, and confidence didn’t disappear when she pivoted to beauty. It became the brand’s DNA.

Richards started goGLOW as a mobile side hustle. It is now a national franchise operation that has been expanding rapidly across the country. The brand holds a patent on its air-filtration tanning equipment, not a marketing gimmick, but actual proprietary technology designed to create a safer, cleaner session environment. And the founder’s story from law enforcement to beauty mogul has become one of the most compelling in the franchise world.

The Sherman Oaks flagship is the first of several California studios planned for the Los Angeles area, and RadarOnline.com has learned that a West Hollywood location is expected to open later this year. For a city that is arguably more obsessed with glow than any other place on earth, from red carpets to beach days to the never-ending content cycle of Instagram and TikTok, the arrival of a brand that treats the tan as a skincare ritual rather than a cosmetic shortcut has clearly struck a nerve.

Los Angeles has a thousand places that will spray you bronze. It now has exactly one that will spray you healthy.