Yeah, Glo: A group of senior girls serve as Glo Tanning ambassadors who receive free services in exchange for posting on their Instagram

Senior Gia Tuso opens the glass doors welcoming her into Glo Tanning. A simple pink “Glo” sign greets her at the front desk and staff members immediately recognize her as a familiar face. She selects her service upfront — a light spray tan with no add-ons — and walks to a cube-like room housing the Mystic tanning box. 

Tuso applies a blending cream to prevent her nails and toenails from absorbing the tan and puts a plastic shower cap over her short, brunette hair. She waves her hand in front of the machine’s green start light and holds her arms up facing the front to get the most tan on her body. She then flips around to her back and repeats the process, the tan misting her back from top to bottom.

“I’ve gotten spray tans a lot, especially for school dances, and usually, the process when I go to other places is pretty long, and it’s not a machine doing it for you,” Tuso said. “But when you go to Glo and get it done, you just stand in a machine and it takes five minutes for the spray tan to be completely done, which is super time-saving.”

After waiting a few minutes for the tan to dry, she is out the glass doors and on her way home. The whole process took five minutes and cost her nothing. 

Tuso and seniors Addie Moore, Annabelle Covell, Camilla Simmons, Evie Ordonez, Francie Garrison, Lili Vottero and Sophia Beedle serve as Glo Tanning ambassadors promoting the company’s new announcements.

The girls receive services like red light therapy, water massages and spray tans for free and in the future, possibly PR packages and access to exclusive services. As a trade-off, they post four Instagram story posts and one actual Instagram post per month, tagging Glo tanning. 

“For [Instagram] stories, it doesn’t just have to be posting yourself at Glo it could be you got a spray tan and the next day you’re with your friends,” Beedle said. “You can just tag Glo Tanning and #GloGang in the corner and that counts as a post.”

But the girls didn’t just sign up to be ambassadors. It all started late December when Vottero received a comment from Glo on her senior Homecoming post telling her to “check her DMs.” Vottero had been to Glo before for spray tans, but this was the first she had heard of the ambassadorship. 

With caution, assuming the comment was a scam, Vottero opened the message. She was surprised to see it was from the legitimate Glo account with almost 20k followers telling her she would be a great fit for their six-month ambassador program. 

Vottero’s friends — Covell, Moore and Beedle — soon received the same comments on their posts. 

“I have no idea how they found me because I used to get my spray tans at KC Tan but all in the same timeframe, Glo followed me and DMed me,” Covell said. “I had never been to Glo before.”

The three then recommended their other friends, Simmons, Ordonez, Garrison and Tuso, to Glo as other candidates for the ambassador program.

“Do you wanna go Glo together?” is a frequent text Moore and Tuso exchange, as if “Gloing” is a verb. The two live 15 minutes from the salon and frequently try out their red light therapy cocoons or water massages together. 

Moore, who has been going to Glo since freshman year, will tell Tuso what services to try out based on what she’s had in the past. 

“I usually do something different every time I go, because I want to try everything,” Tuso said. “You can do multiple things in a day, too.”

Each girl accepted the ambassadorship invitation within the 72-hour time frame before the fleeting offer was passed on to another candidate. The girls received an email detailing the duties of their ambassadorship. 

The biggest requirement is posting the needed amount on Instagram each month and reposting any Glo announcements, all of which are recorded on their ambassador portal on the Glo website. 

“[Posting] is a little bit embarrassing,” Simmons said. “So I really try to make the most out of it. If I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it well and then also get all the benefits that I can.”

While their guy friends might make snarky comments about the #GloGang they need to include in their posts or mockingly tag Glo in their Instagram stories, the girls have learned to embrace it. Their posts save them money on Glo’s services that would otherwise cost hundreds without the ambassadorship. 

Some of the girls plan to be ambassadors for just the six months for Glo to gain publicity, however, Covell, Beedle and Tuso hope to continue the program as they go to college this fall. 

“You’re only there for like, 15 minutes, and then you’re out the door,” Tuso said. “So it’s like a really quick, easy thing to go and do. It’s also fun to post on your social media more, it makes you kind of feel like an influencer a little bit.”