The results were not always pretty, and Marla is refreshingly honest about it. Her daughter would head off to school with legs a few shades too dark, an obvious giveaway that mom had been testing something new the night before. It got noticeable enough that teachers started asking questions, wondering out loud what exactly was going on with this little girl's skin tone, a small moment that has become a favorite story to tell years later. It is a small moment, but it captures something real about entrepreneurship that rarely gets talked about, the actual mess and trial and error that happens behind the scenes before a business ever looks polished to the outside world. There was no glossy before and after photo yet, no confident social media post, just a mom experimenting in her garage with the one person patient enough to keep showing up.
This clip resonates with any entrepreneur who has ever had to figure things out through imperfect practice runs rather than a perfect training manual. Marla explains that mastering a craft like spray tanning requires testing variables that only show up on real skin, how long to apply skin prep before a session, how timing changes results, how solution reacts differently depending on the person. None of that can be learned from a manual or a mannequin, it has to be tested, adjusted, and tested again, mistakes included, and that means someone has to be the guinea pig while the business owner works out the kinks. Marla jokes that no one was harmed in the process, but there is real truth buried in the humor, real skills require real practice, and there is no shortcut around that reality no matter what industry you are in, whether that is spray tanning, cutting hair, or learning to read a home inspection report.
For anyone building a service based business in real estate, insurance, or any hands on trade, this story is a reminder that expertise is not something that arrives fully formed, it is built through repetition, awkward early attempts, and yes, sometimes a few too dark kindergarten legs along the way. The professionals who look effortless today almost always have a story like this one buried in their past, a moment where they were still figuring it out on whoever was willing to sit still long enough. Marla's willingness to laugh about it now, rather than gloss over it, is exactly the kind of authenticity that makes her such a compelling guest and such a trusted professional to her clients today. It is also a quiet reminder to give grace to anyone early in their own career, because the polished version of any professional almost always started out a little rough around the edges, testing, adjusting, and occasionally embarrassing a five year old along the way.
Watch the full episode of Bricks and Risk to hear more from Marla Sacchetta on building And So It Glows from the ground up, the real science behind a great spray tan, and the client relationships that have kept people coming back for nearly a decade. Find Marla and And So It Glows on Instagram at andsoitglows, on Facebook at Andsoitglows, and online at andsoitglows.net. Her daughter, by the way, survived the experimentation just fine and is now old enough to laugh about it right alongside her mom.