WINTER 2026
ISSUE 05

Sugared + Bronzed is a boutique spray tan and hair-removal salon chain with 40 shops throughout the United States. Since August 2025, workers at three locations in Los Angeles have won recognition of the first-ever tanning salon union. We asked two organizers to tell us their story. When years of overwork and dangerous conditions on the job were exacerbated by wildfire pollution, Allie Rooney and Alex Walsh took inspiration from the Hollywood strikes of the prior year, drawing upon existing bonds of friendship to develop their shared sense of justice into a practice of premajority unionism powerful enough to take on the girlboss. We have transcribed and condensed their reflections below.

ALLIE: I’m a cosmetologist. I was a makeup artist, so I also worked on sets doing hair and makeup for a while, which ultimately led me to cosmetology school, and I worked at an Aveda salon for four years. There was a lot of the usual stuff where they want to control you and how much work you’re putting out and the price of your work. And it came to a point where I felt like I was in a cage all day, where they were like, this is what you have to do, this is how you have to dress. You know, I thought that coming into this creative world was gonna be different, and it just wasn’t. And then, during the pandemic, I worked at a hair school. That was fun. I liked it. But I missed working with clients, and it just wasn’t for me. And then I started working at Sugared + Bronzed out here. I started as a tanner, and because I have my cosmetology license, they asked me to start sugaring. It was probably one of the hardest things ever. I think it was even harder than hair school. Every day I was crying, and I was like, I think I’m gonna quit –

ALEX: – because it’s very intense –

ALLIE: – yes, because it was so hard. But everybody was like, “No,” like, “you’re really good at this,” like, “you got it.” And I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m just gonna push forward.” I’m really glad I did because I really enjoy sugaring. I think it’s really cool.

ALEX: Allie and I have worked at Sugared + Bronzed for the exact same amount of time. [I love it!] We got hired on the same day. Three and a half years ago on the last day of May. [Yep.] On that fateful day.

My bachelor’s degree is in musical theater, so I was always into creative worlds. I was doing education, then I changed to musical theater, moved to LA, and – I love telling this story – I would just use a good old CVS Sally Hanson wax kit, the one where you just rub it between your hands to warm it up and use it – you know, anyone can do it – on my underarms. It started with my roommates, and then the girl across the hall was like, “Oh, me too.” And then pretty soon I was running this underground Sally Hanson wax business at theater school. I was enjoying myself so much. I loved doing this. I love when people are like, “Oh my God, it looks so good, I feel so much better.” I was like, “Wow.” It only takes like ten minutes. It’s something so small that you can do for someone else. Something that felt so small that made such a big difference. So I graduated in 2020 with a degree in live performance, which was hilarious, super funny. They’re lucky that I love comedy, because that was just, it was really good. So that’s when I decided that because I have so many other interests in this life – music and theater has never left me, it’s still a big part of me – but I wanted to explore esthetics. So I also went to Aveda’s hair school out in Westwood, but I did esthetics instead of cosmetology. Sugared + Bronzed came to my school and did a demo with recruiters, and I was like, “This is kind of weird hippie stuff, I don’t know.” I believed in waxing and was pretty loyal to it. But then I tried it myself and I was like, “Okay, all right, you might be onto something here.” It’s really good. And once I switched, my first job out of esthetician school was at Sugared + Bronzed, and now I’m 100 percent sugar focused. I’ll never switch back ever in my life. I’m pro-sugaring all the way. Now I’ve been working at Sugared + Bronzed for three and a half years.

ALLIE: She’s really good. Just saying. She’s probably the number one person everybody asks for, so . . .

ALEX: Oh my gosh. Allie, you’re –

ALLIE: – no, you are. So, sugaring: it’s lemon juice, sugar, and water boiled down to a paste that we mold onto the skin and flick off.

ALEX: You’re wearing a glove, and you mold it on and you flick it off, and it kind of stays in this little ball and collects hair, basically. It’s hard because it’s – I wouldn’t say “molten,” but it’s almost liquid, like it’s a paste that you can get warm enough to be really soft. So the skill of even being able to hold it is something that takes people a long time to learn. For waxing, you just use a stick, spread it on the skin, and either rip the wax itself off or pull a strip affixed to the wax and remove the hair that way. But for sugaring, it takes like a week or two for people to learn how to even hold it in their hands.

ALLIE: Yeah, it’s a skill. And you’re using muscles that you don’t normally use. Training hurts your hands. [Yes.] It takes a lot to master, in my opinion. I’m definitely still learning different ways . . .

ALEX: We have warmers at all different temperatures, and you have to learn to be able to look at someone’s hair and decide what type of sugar you would use for it. And it is a sticky substance. It can get real crazy [Yeah!] if you’re using the wrong type. It’s all about hair direction as well. You need to choose the appropriate sugar and then the appropriate amount. But it’s the most versatile hair removal, to me. You can do a big strip, a little strip, you can do a tiny strip. It all depends on how you use your hand. For me, it’s easier than waxing. A stick is not as versatile as your own fingers.

ALLIE: Yeah, I agree. But it was harder to learn, because you have to learn how to hold it and how much to grab, because if you grab too much, it’s gonna get everywhere. If you grab too little, it’s gonna get too hard, too fast.

ALEX: You’re panicking. There is sugar everywhere.

ALLIE: If it’s too warm, then the sugar melts, so you can’t get it off . . . You can’t panic. [Yes.] You have to be like, “Everything’s okay, we’re gonna get this off, it’s all good.”

ALEX: During training, your sugar’s on the ceiling. Like, how did it get there?

ALLIE: It was really hard in the beginning because they’re paying you to do this, they want you to do this, but, like, you’re doing it, and they’re like, “Ow.” And in your head you’re like, “Oh my God, this is horrible, I’m hurting this person.”

ALEX: Well, and they’re also pretty much always naked. Like, we do Brazilians all day. That’s our most requested service. We see vaginas all day, every day. So you kind of have to come to terms with that, as well. Definitely at first you’re like, “This person is literally naked,” and you’re not using a stick, you’re using your hands with just a glove. So it is a very intimate service. You kind of have to be that person who is like, “Listen, this is totally normal,” like, “It’s totally fine, nothing is weird here, and I’m here for you.” They’re in pain, they’re feeling vulnerable. People who come in for the first time are like, “People do this?” I’m like, “Yeah, [Mm-hmm.] we all do it. People before you have done it, people after you will do it. It is totally normal, and we will get through this together.” Like, you form a bond with these people. Some clients, we’re Instagram friends, we’ve hung out outside of work, like, they’ve seen me in my non-Sugared + Bronzed uniform. It’s all women too, mostly, so you just kind of form these bonds. There’s something about being naked on a table and kind of in pain: they’re like, “I’m gonna tell you something I’ve never told anyone before.”

ALLIE: Literally, yeah, they’re like, “Oh my God, so my boyfriend cheated,” and literally –

ALEX: – yeah, they’re like, “So my dad, he’s just, like, not communicating…” so, yeah. They really go into detail about their lives.

ALLIE: Um, I love it. I love –

ALEX: – I know! I’m like, “I, yeah, I will keep this for you.”

ALLIE: Exactly! I’m like, “This is so fun.” [Mm-hmm.] I love being their therapist. I’m like, “Well, have we tried this?” And they’re like, “No. . .” And I’m like, “Huh. Yeah. Try it.”

ALEX: Yeah! I had a client be like, “Listen, I was almost, um, excited to come here today.” And I said, “Thank you so much.” Because it’s an errand that everyone dreads.

They start to freak out. [Exactly.] I’m like – [Fight or flight!] Like, people start sweating. I’ve had people be like, “I’m starting to breathe faster, like I’m kind of freaking out.” I’m like, “Yeah, your body does not know why you’re doing this [Yeah.] or what’s happening.” And it can freak a lot of people out. So you have to just be like, “This is so normal,” [Yeah. Normal.] and everything’s totally fine. Because everyone thinks they’re your worst client. People apologize for their bodies. I wanna foster this . . . After seeing so many bodies, I didn’t realize that most women have C-section scars and things like that. Most people don’t know that, because you don’t see it, like, most people don’t see everybody’s vagina all the time. [Like, yeah.] So you’re like, “Wow, everything is pretty much normal, we all have it and it’s all normal.” And that – if I could give that to my clients, that’s one of my biggest goals: your body is not weird at all. I just see that all the time. [Yep, same.] Your vagina’s super normal.

ALLIE: Yeah, people are like, “Oh, this is weird.” And I’m like, “No, it’s not. I see that all the time.” It’s the same with tanning, too. I feel like this job has really helped me with my own body issues, too. Because, you know, everybody has different bodies. And when you’re tanning, you’re seeing everything.

ALEX: Women are insecure about everything. [Yeah.] Like, we all have something. Everyone is wanting something else. And if you can just instill any of that confidence in them, then it’s worth it. And sometimes having a hairless vagina is all it takes, you know? People are like, “I feel literally on top of the world.”

ALLIE: It’s fun. I like it –

ALEX: – the girls are saying it’s Bush Summer.

ALLIE: I know! Yeah, I’m having a good time… I started doing on myself a tiny little triangle. [Mm-hmm.] I really like it, so I tell everybody to do it. I’ve been doing it on everybody.

ALEX: I’m dead! They’re like, I wanna leave some hair, but I don’t know what I wanna leave. And I’m like, “Okay,” and I’m like, “Oh, I got the perfect design.” [Yeah, yeah.] You look at their body shape, you look at what type of hair they have, and if they want it smaller, bigger, like you can do a strip, you can do – I’ve done a heart. That was cute.

ALLIE: Yes. Somebody asked me to do a T for her boyfriend before. That was pretty hard.

ALEX: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying! I’m like, if your boyfriend’s name is, like, Tim, I probably got you, but if his name is Brian . . . like, I do not think I got you. [Yeah.] But they also don’t encourage that really at Sugared + Bronzed because they want it to be very standard, like you can go to any Sugared + Bronzed location in the United States and you can have any technician and you will have the exact same experience. Which is obviously impossible. It’s just not possible. They don’t let you request certain technicians because they don’t want anyone making these bonds and relationships. They want it to be just, you’re in, you’re out. The appointments are 20 minutes long from start to finish, so they encourage being very quick. [Yeah.] It doesn’t work out great all the time.

ALLIE: Let me describe a good day. I’m walking in, and my sugaring room is all ready to go. My client is there, and, you know, we’re sugaring. We have a receptionist. So, like, I’m doing the thing, I am saying goodbye to them, they’re leaving, and then I’m cleaning my room. Then, you know, I’m going back up and doing the same thing. Everybody’s on time. You know, we’re just going through the day. And then at the end of the day we didn’t have a last appointment, so I’m able to close everything up and I’m able to get outta there at like 11:05. Bam. Cleaning the room is a lot. I am making sure there’s no sugar anywhere. I’m mopping my floor, sweeping the floor, getting rid of the Barbicide, washing the tweezers. But, like, on a bad day, there’s only two of us –

ALEX: – fully booked –

ALLIE: – like, and say someone cancels, it gets taken right away –

ALEX: – the manager says, “Hey, can you make sure to do the baseboards before the end of the day?”

ALLIE: Literally. Like, “Hey, corporate’s coming in. You need to do a deep clean.” [Mm-hmm.] I’m fully booked. I have to do a deep clean, I’m on dual, so I have sugaring appointments and I have tanning appointments. And it’s like sugar, tan, sugar, tan, sugar, tan. So I’m running, I’m doing a Brazilian, and this person is ten minutes late.

ALEX: – the appointments are 20 minutes. We don’t have a grace period. At Sugared + Bronzed you can show up basically whenever. But I am not taking someone past 10 minutes. I cannot. I’m gonna run into my next appointment. Like, everything’s gonna get screwed up for the rest of the day. [Yeah.] So I will turn people away after 10 minutes, because then you only have 10 minutes from check-in to check-out.

ALLIE: So this person is 10 minutes late. I have gone lightning speed. I did the sugaring in nine minutes. I run out. I’m waiting for the client to come out. My next client, for tanning, is here. So I put the tanning client in the room. I’m waiting for the sugaring client to come out, they come out, and I check them out. I run to the back, I grab the tanning solution. I run up front, and then I do the tan, whatever. I come out and I run back to clean my sugar room. I clean the sugar room. I run back up front. I’m waiting for them to come out. Then my sugaring client’s here. So I take them to the sugaring room, and then I run back up front, and then I check the tanning client out, and then I run back out and do the Brazilian, and then I run back out and I clean the tanning room.

ALEX: It’s a little insane. You forget that it’s not life or death.

ALLIE: That is how they treat it. I was sick this week, and it was, like, the end of the fucking world that I wasn’t able to make a couple of my shifts. They act like we are saving lives, and I’m like, “I promise that this person can come tomorrow to get a Brazilian. I pinky-promise that it’s gonna be fine.” I do not like doing sugaring and tanning when there’s not a person there to help me clean up. We used to have cleaners back in the day. And the tanning is not regulated.

ALEX: Tanning rooms are harder to clean, I mean, at the end of the night you’re mopping the walls, there’s tan everywhere. For sugaring it’s a lot easier. [It is.] Except if you get sugar on the ceiling. [Right.] We’re pros though. We don’t do that anymore.

ALLIE: At the end of the night, I have two rooms to clean. And that’s if you only used one –

ALEX: – they encourage you to open as many rooms as possible, just to get people in. So at the end of the night, they give you 15 minutes to close. Only 15 minutes.

ALLIE: There’s no possible way, when I’m doing sugaring and tanning and I’m by myself, for that to happen. So most of the time I feel really bad because like a lot of the time it’s you, Alex, and we’re there until 11:30 because I have to clean both rooms.

ALEX: It’s okay, because I still have to mop the hallway, I have to close the computers, I have to make sure everything’s restocked. There’s more to do. [Yeah.] You have a list of chores for downtime. If you don’t have a client, you should be, you know, Windexing the doors or whatever. Like, you become a cleaner for $18 an hour.

ALLIE: We used to have cleaners back in the day.

ALEX: Yeah. That was great. [Yeah.] But then the managers were like, “Wow, you guys are really good at cleaning. And we don’t even need cleaners anymore.”

There’s two girls at our store, Allie and another girl, who do both. You have to have a license to do the sugaring, but you don’t for the tanning.

ALLIE: Tanning is not regulated.

ALEX: You have to have a license to do the sugaring, but you don’t for the tanning. We have the state board of barbering and cosmetology, and they regulate our cleanliness, like how long you have to keep your tweezers in barbicide, how cold or warm it has to be in the room, how close the sink has to be to wherever you’re working. They have those rules for us [sugaristas] for safety. But airbrush tanning is unregulated. There’s no board or agency or anything that makes sure the clients and the employees are safe.

ALLIE: Yep, they can do whatever the hell they want.

ALEX: That’s another big part of our campaign, to bring attention to that and to start the conversation. Because people don’t ask questions . . . Like, is this safe? “Wow, I’m breathing this in a lot. I wonder why they don’t give me a mask? Am I supposed to be wearing goggles?” Little things like that . . . “Hmm, my nail tech wears goggles . . . she wears a mask.”

ALLIE: But at Sugared + Bronzed they’re like, “Yeah, whatever, you’re fine.”

ALEX: Once we realized that they don’t really tell the truth, that’s when we were like, “Okay, I think we have to start doing our own research.” Like, I don’t think this company can be trusted. I don’t think we can necessarily believe what they’re telling us. [Yeah.] And that was true.

ALLIE: Yeah. That was true. When they were like, “The spray tan is FDA approved,” we were like, “Oh, okay.” But it just kept being weird. Like, when I spray a lot, I don’t feel well. During the really busy times, like Coachella or New Years, I think the most sprays I’ve ever done was 24 in one day. And then I’m just breathing in too much of it. We were talking about this with one of our past managers, and we were like, “Something’s not right. This is happening to a lot of us, it’s not just me.” So, we had looked it up, and sure enough, it is FDA approved as a cream for your skin, but not in aerosol form –

ALEX: – and not for your mucus membranes [Yes, eyes, nose, mouth . . .] or your vagina. So yeah. We have a service that’s literally just a face spray. You blow your nose and it’s black. [Yeah.] The girls do it every night with a baby wipe. I see it.

ALLIE: I get really dizzy, just an overall feeling of unwell and fatigue. We have to get the brown out of their noses. It’s not as bad if you’re using the nose-plugs, but like, you still get brown from the nose plugs. [Mm-hmm.] We’ve asked I don’t know how many times for better masks. And they were just like, “What you have is sufficient.” I was like, “Will you at least get us N95 masks?”

ALEX: They supply us with the blue Covid masks.

ALLIE: Yeah. Or the KN95s. The tan goes right through it.

ALEX: You take your mask off and there’s tan underneath it everywhere. Unionizing has been good because now they know we’re serious. Now the manager’s like, “Okay, like we’re consulting with a doctor to find different masks for you guys.” She ordered some glasses that have edges on the bottom, but they don’t have edges on the top.

ALLIE: I wish she just consulted with me first before buying them, because those are the ones that I had tried before, and –

ALEX: – you already knew the tan goes through it. And there are no windows at Sugared + Bronzed, it’s an enclosed space with just an HVAC. There’s the lobby, a long hallway, the sugaring rooms on one side, tanning rooms on the other side, and an employee room at the end of the hallway at the back. It’s all one air system, and there are vents in the tanning rooms. Sometimes we find the tan on the sugaring beds because it comes through the vents. So even people who aren’t tanners – like, I’ve never done a spray tan a day in my life, but I know for a fact that I’m breathing in the tans when I’m working. Not at the same concentration, of course, because I’m not in the six-by-six rooms with the sprayer . . .

ALLIE: Yeah, the rooms are pretty small. We’ve asked before for them to fix the ventilation and they wouldn’t do it. But now, all of a sudden, it’s getting fixed. [Mm-hmm.]

ALEX: And the HVAC system they’re gonna have to replace is 14 years old. The guy comes in to change the filter and he’s like, “Wow, you should have this changed more often, like, it’s completely black, and it’s only been three or four weeks.” He was like, “This is really bad, this doesn’t filter anything.” And this is just the normal air conditioning, not anything for the tan. And we’re having a heat wave currently.

ALLIE: And since I started working here, the AC has broken every year at around this time when it gets really hot. They just keep replacing the belt, which just fixes that part. For months, I’ve noticed that it’s set to 68, but it’s 72 degrees in there. That is what it does right before it breaks. I’ve been saying that. And what did it do? It broke. It’s like 77 degrees in there and we’re supposed to be sugaring these people. I’m wearing shorts and a tank top to work, my hair’s all the way up, and I’m still sweating. I don’t get hot easily, so if I’m sweating, then Alex is dying.

ALEX: I didn’t come into work last year when the AC was broken. I didn’t know that it was my right not to come in. That was before I knew that. So I used my sick time because I couldn’t even get my gloves on, I was sweating so much. I didn’t realize that I had the right to habitable work conditions yet, but now I know. We make $18.15 an hour. And we’re the highest paid employees. The tanners get $17.75, something like that. Receptionists get $17.75.

ALLIE: We get tips. That’s how we’re able to live. [Yeah.] Literally, if all I was making was my wage, like, I wouldn’t be able to pay rent. I make more in tips than in what Sugared + Bronzed pays me.

ALEX: I make like $45,000 a year. $22,000 a year from my wages, and then the other 20-something from tips.

ALLIE: With taxes last year I made like 55, I wanna say. And yeah, it was more in tips than it was in what Sugared + Bronzed were paying me.

ALEX: They do a suggested 18% gratuity for every service. And most people pay it, if not more, 20%. They started doing it during Covid, and that’s kind of their “Well, this is what we’re doing for you.” [Exactly.] Like, “We are at the forefront of esthetics.”

ALLIE: And we were like, “Okay, but, that’s what they’re giving us. You’re not giving us that money.”

ALEX: I did ask for a raise. I had a meeting with the VP. She told me to budget better. [Oh?] And I can text her if I have any concerns about budgeting, and she can help me. And I was like, okay.

ALLIE: Yeah, I got the same spiel.

ALEX: The winter is notoriously less busy, and last winter was really hard. They’ll cut you from your shift if there’s not enough clients. So the girls were ending up working two, three days a week, and getting cut when they got there in the morning. Both of my roommates are tanners at Sugared + Bronzed. We had to leave our apartment, like, we couldn’t afford to live there anymore. They cut people during the summer, even. So that was another demand of ours, that you can’t hire a bunch of people during the summer because it’s so busy, and then say, “Wow, we have way too many people in the winter.”

ALLIE: I had to get another job. I was just working nonstop because, like you said, it was just not consistent. There were times where I only had like three shifts at Sugared + Bronzed, so I at least had my two guaranteed shifts at my other place on Saturday and Sunday. But I could pick up there if I had to.

ALEX: And they paid me during the fires too.

ALLIE: Yeah, they paid me during the fires – my other job. [Yeah.] There were weeks where I was working seven days because all of a sudden Sugared + Bronzed needed me, and I wasn’t gonna screw over my other job that I was able to pick up during the times when Sugared + Bronzed were like, “Fuck you.” Before we decided to unionize, I had a meeting with upper management, and I was very matter-of-fact and blunt. I was like, “This is what’s happening. This is what you’re doing, and this is what we want.” And she was like, “You’re getting really aggressive here. You gotta calm down. We do so much for you.” And I was like, “You don’t do anything for us. What? We don’t have any PTO, we don’t have any of this, we don’t have any of that.” And she was like, “So you would think that we don’t care about you at all?” And I was like, “I’m leaning towards that way, yeah.” Then she was like, “Why don’t you just quit?” And I was like, “Well, I love my job, and that’s why we’re coming to you.” I was like, “So you live in New York, and you have a baby, and you do this and that. Why don’t you live off of $50,000 a year? You try it.” And she was just like, “I’ll think about what you said to me, and we can have another meeting.” And I was like, “Really think about it. You look at your finances right now and you tell me you can live off of that.” And that’s the last thing I ever said to her. I did have another meeting set up, but I canceled it ’cause I didn’t wanna talk to her.

ALEX: Well, you know, you knew how productive it was gonna be.

ALLIE: After that conversation, Alex and I were like, “I think we should look into other options.” What else can we do?

ALEX: You can only yell into the void so many times. I’ve talked to store directors, managers, shift leads, the regional director, their bosses, the VP. You can only tell so many people that there are issues and hear them tell you, “I’m listening, I hear you. I’m here for you. I will bring this up to the other people that need to hear this. Something will get done.”

ALLIE: One person called the CEO after the fires to tell her about the problems. She had good scores, so they just promoted her.

ALEX: We realized that people were not moving up in the company because of their hard work and dedication.

ALLIE: No, because all of us would be way high up now if that were the case.

ALEX: We had been talking about organizing for a long time. The girls at all the stores in Southern California started talking more, and we realized that there were problems. We thought it was maybe just our store, our location, but then we realized it was bigger. The fires were our final push. Girls were offering a hundred dollars for their shift to be covered. They were like, “I really need to go get my dog.” At the Pasadena location, Santa Monica location, even West Third, we had the Runyon Canyon fire. Allie and I both lived right next to Runyan Canyon, so we evacuated, and management were like, “Hey, are you coming in or not?” [Literally.] I told them, I’m not coming in until you get air purifiers. Because the air quality was still really hazardous and we already have such issues with the air quality in the store. We can’t do ash and tanning solution. We need air purifiers. But the CEO went to Mexico and posted a TikTok where she was like, “Ew, guys, you’ve gotta get out of LA because the air quality is, like, disgusting. So I went to Mexico, and, like, Mexico’s still pretty sketchy, though. Like, it’s run by the cartel but, like, whatever, it’s better than being in Karen Bass’s LA.” Um, and then she pressed Post. Yeah. [Mm-hmm.] So all of her employees were like, “Hello?” [Yes.] Like, why would you say that? People realized the true gap. I mean, people think they’re closer to being the CEO of Sugared + Bronzed than they are to being the homeless person outside of Sugared + Bronzed. And I think they realized that the gap was a lot bigger between us and them. Like, it was just like such a reality check of, like, “Wait, you made fifty million dollars this year?”

ALLIE: The fires really called the question for the girls at the Santa Monica location too. They were in the evacuation zone and weren’t let out for hours. And in Venice, too, they were literally sweeping up ash every day. [Mm-hmm.] Um, it was just horrible the way that everybody was treated. Because I have asthma – and I thank God that I stayed home that day, because the Runyon fire was really scary. It was really quick. Because of the air quality, I developed a really bad cough, so we went to Costa Mesa. I went to an urgent-care out there and they were like, “You need to stay out of that air until it gets at least a little better, and this cough needs to get better too.” I was on a high dose of steroids for, like, two weeks. And my manager at the time was like, “Okay, no worries, I’m just gonna delete your shifts.” So I thought everything was good until the end of May, when I get an email saying, “You didn’t hit the hours for the health insurance.” They wouldn’t make an exception for the fires, and I was kicked off the health insurance.

ALEX: If you call out sick one day, three days, then you’re booted off the health insurance. So most of the girls are not enrolled.

ALLIE: Everybody was kicked off in May.

One of our coworkers fell and hurt her ankle. She didn’t have any sick time so she had to come in. [Like, hobbling.] Obviously, because we’re on our feet all day it took longer to do the work and for her ankle to get better.

ALEX: She’s not at the company anymore, but she’s DACA, so management was like, “If you go to the doctor and it’s not actually a worker’s comp injury, you’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for it. So don’t go to the doctor and just sign this.” She was nervous and they pressured her, so she signed it. 

We don’t get any paid time off. And you can get penalized for using your sick days. I mean, at the end of the month you meet with the manager and have a one-on-one where she gives you a score from one to five for, you know, teamwork, dependability, attendance, and everything. And I remember she was like, “I gave you a four out of five on dependability and attendance because you did call out one time in July.” I mean, I am always there. So I did call out on July 10th, and it brought my score down for teamwork as well, because then my team can’t “depend on me.”

ALLIE: Yes. So I didn’t hit my product score, so I got a three out of five. [Mm.] Yeah. And –

ALEX: – “Your team can’t depend on you.” When I’m in the room with my client, that’s when I’m like, I love my job. This is why I do it. I love making people feel beautiful. [Exactly!] I love taking care of people. I wanna be an advocate for people. It’s when I come out of the room and then I’m at Sugared + Bronzed again.

ALLIE: Yeah, mm-hmm, I agree. I really wish that I didn’t have to work so much because I wouldn’t hate everything so much. You know?

ALEX: True. It’s like, I just wish I wasn’t burnt out, because really I would be able to do so much more.

Mm-hmm. People who hate their jobs just quit. We love our job.

ALLIE: I know. And I love my coworkers. We have such a good time.

ALEX: That’s what I think they underestimated when we filed and it became public knowledge that we were petitioning to join a union. We filed, and the vote was a month later, so there was a month where they ran a counter-campaign against us, and we didn’t even file charges. We were like, “You know what? We’re just getting started. We wanna work with you.” But they just underestimated the bond that we had with our coworkers. Like, we are family. Like, I mean, I live with two of ’em. We hang out, all of us, outside of work. [Yes!] They don’t realize, like, all we’ve been doing for the past couple years is supporting each other. If Allie’s on dual, I’m like, “I’m gonna check out your client for you.” Or she’s like, “Alex, you’re running behind. I’m gonna flip your room for you.” Our union rep told us: you have to act like a union, even before you’re in it. It’s like, okay, what would I do if I was in a union? [Yep!] If this, if that. We were like, it’s about our clients and our coworkers, and we just became this unit. So yeah, it was just kind of funny that they didn’t even make it fun. They didn’t even offer a raise. I was like, “Gimme something good, try to persuade me.” But they were just like, “Think about your future.” [Literally.] We’re like, “Babe, come on.”

ALLIE: Literally! I wanted them to talk to me so bad. But of course they weren’t gonna talk to me, because I’m a very outspoken person, [Mm-hmm.] and I clocked their illegal stuff to their faces. They didn’t like that. They wouldn’t even look at me.

ALEX: Yeah. I had one meeting where she was like, “We’re not gonna be able to have open and honest communication anymore because of the union. And I was like, “Honestly, like, we don’t have open and honest communication now. So . . . yeah.”

ALLIE: They were like, We were working on a platform –

ALEX: – a suggestion box, basically. “We were working on it behind the scenes, guys, and  maybe we would’ve paid you more, like, later . . .”

ALLIE: The only raise we have gotten was probably a month after we started there. [Mm-hmm.] They were like, “Hey, we’re gonna pay you guys a ten percent raise because of inflation.” And I was like, oh my God, this place is great. That was the last raise we saw, and it’s been three years.

ALEX: Yeah. Like, wow. I was like, you don’t have to sell products if you don’t want to, and everyone’s so nice here. Like, we just got a cost-of-living raise. Like, the light was in my eyes, I was like, this is amazing.

ALLIE: That was the last raise we saw, and it’s been three years.

ALEX: Um, so we had a coworker.

ALLIE: Yes. So our coworker Leanne, we love her. We miss her. She was our receptionist for a little while. She was like, “It sucks here. Like, why don’t you guys unionize?” And we were like, “We can do that?”

ALEX: She’s in the SAG-AFTRA union, and this was when the strike was happening. So I would see that every weekend she was at the strikes, and I was like, this is so cool. Like, I love how you’re fighting for something. But the way, it never occurred to us!

ALLIE: Same. I didn’t think people did that anymore. I didn’t think we could do it. I thought they were kind of already set-up things. Obviously not.

ALEX: I didn’t know that you can organize anything. [Mm-hmm.] I thought it was just for entertainment and construction workers. You know, people who were getting exposed to chemicals . . . Wait. [Yeah.] We realized that we work at the bougie mine. Like, they slapped a cute little logo on it, but we work in the mines. We have more in common with construction workers than we thought.

ALLIE: Literally! It’s crazy.

ALEX: I remember filling out the EWOC form – the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. [Yes!] “Hi, help! We don’t know anything. Uh, can you help us?”

People pick up shifts at West Third from other stores. You get to know people. And organizing just started with getting to know people more. [Yes.] “Do you guys like your manager?” “How are things at your store?” “Are you guys busy? Are things slow?” And a lot of people had the same issues we had. [Yes.] And some people have it worse, some people have it better.

ALLIE: But it was our goal to get Santa Monica –

ALEX: – the original location.

ALLIE: Us and Santa Monica, we are the number one and two in LA, we were the most profitable locations. So we knew that we were gonna be okay.

ALEX: People were like, “Is it gonna be like at Starbucks where they just shut down your store and fire everyone?” Yeah. And we were like, “We don’t know. We’re taking a leap of faith.” It really showed me something about Sugared + Bronzed. The first thing people would say is “Are they gonna find out? Are they gonna be mad? Are they gonna fire me?” I was like, “Wow. You have a lot of questions about what your employer’s gonna do to you.” There was a lot of fear.

ALLIE: That’s when our coworker Sierra, who actually just got a new job, [Proud of her!] got Santa Monica all on board. And another coworker, who also quit, Rhiannon.

ALEX: We’re so lucky to know these people. Sierra and Rhiannon will never reap the benefits of this. They did this for us, for the people that will come after them. They did this out of the goodness of their hearts, out of the belief in doing something good and right. We could never be here without them. I mean, who knows if we will even reap the benefits, [I know.] but that’s not what it’s about at all.

ALLIE: No, it’s about the people in our industry being exploited for our talents. [Our work is underappreciated.] That can’t happen anymore. This is a career. This is just like any other job, and we deserve the benefits of any other career. It’s just really frustrating to see upper management reap all the benefits, and we don’t get anything.

ALEX: These people are our friends. You see your friends struggling and you’re just like, “What can I do about it?”

ALLIE: My clients are so excited.

ALEX: And that’s what they said: “The clients will not be on your side.”

ALLIE: I know. I haven’t met one person who’s said that. Everybody is like, “Hell yeah! You deserve so much more.”

ALEX: Yes. Clients were texting me on the day of the vote, [Yeah, me too!] like, “Tell me how it goes! I really hope you guys win!” Our clients love us, and they tell me all the time, “I’m not here for the company, I’m here for you.”

ALLIE: It’s really disheartening that they’re willing to pay these fines rather than talk to us and pay us better. Literally why?

ALEX: When they realized we were organizing, they stopped letting us pick up shifts at different locations. Now we’re not allowed to go to any non-union stores. [Just obviously retaliation.] Then they added four people to the bargaining unit just to vote no. Even with that and four contested votes that shouldn’t have been, we won our union by an overwhelming majority. We didn’t file complaints about any of that. And now they won’t answer any calls from the union rep. So we had to file complaints about refusal to bargain and retaliation, which is just so frustrating because that’s a lot of money that they could spend on us. You could get goggles, you could get new masks, you could get a doorbell. But they’d rather waste the money on legal fees and fines than talk to us. They don’t understand that they’ll never turn us against each other. We’re the bigger person. And our goal is for us to come to an agreement together and make this a better company.

ALLIE: Maybe it would be different if the vote was more split, but this is obviously what everyone wants.

ALEX: They know how we feel! But they don’t see that organizing has taught us that intersectionality is everywhere. And especially this summer in LA, everyone, even if they’ve never done anything like that in their whole lives, is realizing, “I now have to stand up.” We realized that it’s all connected. We are forming a group that’s fighting against all these issues. And now our Latina coworkers have the support of everyone in our union.

ALLIE: Especially with all the CWA, they have the women’s caucus and the LGBT caucus, and it’s really cool. I’m excited to be part of those as well.

ALEX: Oh my gosh. We went to the EWOC conference in Detroit. That was awesome. We led a panel with the Labor Network for Sustainability. We love them so much. Grown men who came to our panel were like, “Can you explain sugaring? What’s tanning?” I tried not to say the word “vagina” the whole time. We had people coming up to us all day, like, “Oh, were you guys the salon panel? I heard it was amazing!” We had 200 people being like, “We can’t wait to hear what you guys do.” It was overwhelming to see all the support. I can’t believe there’s all these people out there who care about us and who want us to succeed. And people talk to me like an equal. We get talked down to because we’re women all the time, even by the women who run our salon. You start to think like, “Maybe I don’t know anything.” [Yeah, “I’m just a silly girl!”] And these grown men who have been organizing for years were like, “No, you are exactly correct.”

ALLIE: It meant a lot, because I feel like I gaslight myself, like, “This isn’t that bad, I’m just being dramatic.” [I’m being greedy, yeah, I’m dramatic.] But sitting in that room and seeing people’s jaws drop. None of it’s okay. I’m not being dramatic. This is actually horrible. This is real.

ALEX: You realize that you have to fight for everyone and everyone’s issues, not just for the majority. We’re fighting for everyone, even the people you don’t agree with, [Exactly.] even the people you don’t like. You all have one thing in common, and that is organizing. Sometimes it’s the only thing we have in common with other people. [Yep.] With everything going on in LA and elsewhere, people realize that shit’s getting bad, so you have to stand up for something. [Exactly.] Anything. And this is a pretty solid choice. I mean, we cover a lot of ground, so I’d like to think we’re kind of helpful in some regard. I want baby labor organizers to be born every day. We’re turning people into leaders. We’re the first, but someday the European Wax Center and Sugared Away and Palm Beach Tan will join the union because we showed that it’s possible.

ALLIE: Yeah. I want everybody in our industry to know that we can do better and that you deserve more. And that it is possible.

ALEX: I’m really proud of everyone because it was a huge leap of faith. We said this is the first time someone’s doing it, [Yep.] but our references are other first-time people in history who showed that someone has to do it for the first time.

ALLIE: I remember a conversation you and I had when we were like, “I don’t know, this feels like it’s gonna be a lot.” And then we were like, “Somebody has to do it.”

ALEX: Someone has to freaking do it. [Otherwise we’re gonna be stuck like this.] And you either put your neck out or put it in the sand, and you’ll never know what would’ve happened. And you’ll have to tell your kids you did nothing. I want people to know that I did something. [Yep.] I love when people are like, “This has enriched me.” [Yes!] “This has taught me something. This has changed me a little bit inside.” In five years, I hope we’re celebrating our second contract, and it’s even better. And that the new people that come into Sugared + Bronze are like, “I wanted to work here because I wanna be –

ALLIE: – because you guys are in a union!

ALEX: Organizing is just getting to know someone, listening to what they have to say, caring about someone you don’t know. And we already were doing that every day. Organizing aligns with our skills.

ALLIE: And I feel it in you too, Alex, that we just have a sense of justice.

ALEX: Ugh. I’m an eldest daughter.

ALLIE: I’m the youngest! And I’m not gonna let people walk all over me or people I love.