Connect
To Top

Meet Bree Lopez of The Bronzed Bungalow in Arcadia

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bree Lopez.

Bree, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story starts in the suburbs of Los Angeles, where I was born and raised. Growing up, I was always intrigued by the fashion and beauty industry (which I’m sure my parents hated because I wanted to wear make – up at the age of seven, get spray tans at the age of 12 and was a serious fashionista with the sassy attitude to go with it). When it came time for college, it was to no one’s surprise that I decided to go to FIDM, The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Downtown LA. While in college, I landed my first job, which happened to be at a tanning salon. Throughout my college years, I worked at a couple of different salons in the greater Los Angeles area and even learned a new trade, airbrush tanning. After graduating with a Visual Communications degree, I was quickly thrown into “The Industry”. I was an Account Executive and Event Manager for a couple of PR firms – which for a while, was such a THRILL. I worked with A list celebrities and companies that I could have only dreamed of as a little kid. At 21 years old, I felt like I was living the life. But it wasn’t long into my career that I found myself having a terrible work-life balance. I would get into the office at 9:00 AM and leave at 7:00 PM, on a good day. Then, I would come home and get straight to work again from my laptop on the couch. This quickly progressed to coming home from work every night in tears.

After five years in the industry, I knew I needed to make a change. On my last day at the firm, I received a call from a well-known salon in the area. They were interested in chatting with me about potential job placement. It’s funny how the universe works when one door closes the next one opens. I ultimately became the Airbrush Tanning Trainer for their entire LA market, which was a job I was so incredibly thankful for. Without being given this opportunity, I may have never landed back into the beauty industry. Fast forward to August 2019 my boyfriend and I decided to make a big move back to his hometown, Phoenix. When faced with having to start my life “over again” in a new town and state I needed to figure out what direction I wanted to take my career. One week after moving my life to Arizona, I received a call no daughter ever wants to receive. My dad had been in a terrible car accident and I needed to be on the next flight back to Los Angeles.

Thankfully, my dad was one of the lucky ones, but this really changed my perspective on so many things in life. It made me realize that we are only on this earth for a short period of time and I wasn’t going to waste one more second of it. This is the moment I decided that I was going to make myself purely and authentically happy and the only way to do that was to take a leap of faith and become my very own boss. Thus, The Bronzed Bungalow was born.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My career path has definitely not been smooth sailing. I think the biggest struggle I had was internally. I always told myself that because I went to school for PR/events that that’s the career path I needed to be on. I thought that if I chose a different path, people would look down on me or that my family wouldn’t be proud of me. I think with age and life experience came confidence and with confidence, my internal struggle disappeared. Since becoming an entrepreneur, I am learning to trust the process and embrace all the small mistakes I may make along the way. There’s a learning curve. I don’t think anyone is prepared for everything that might come their way when beginning a new venture, but I do believe in taking every single experience and growing from it.

Please tell us about your business.
The Bronzed Bungalow is an airbrush tanning studio located inside the Biltmore Nail Bar in Arcadia, AZ. Our mission is to provide a personalized high quality and natural airbrush tanning experience for our clients as an alternative to sun tanning. Living a holistic lifestyle is in our roots, so everything from our tanning solutions to the products we use to clean with is completely natural. Our tanning solutions are also vegan, paraben-free, gluten-free, and cruelty-free. All tans are personalized based on the clients’ desired color result and are infused with nourishing botanicals and a vitamin complex to keep your skin moisturized and glowing.

We pride ourselves on our California roots and embrace the Phoenician culture by offering a curated product collection created by locals. Giving back to our local community also holds a special place in our heart a percentage of each airbrush tan will go to local charities throughout the valley.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Starting my own business! I’ve always had that inner struggle that lacked confidence in my abilities, being able to push that aside, embrace my inner BOSS BABE and jump in full force is something I am so grateful for!

Contact Info:

Suggest a story: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in