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From Solar Boycotting to Sun Worshiping in 50 Short Years |
Until the 20th Century, tanned skin was associated with farmers and laborers, signifying the poor or working class. 17th through 19th century Europeans considered pure white, alabaster skin an essential component of beauty and the signature of gentility and aristocracy. Famous art of the late 19th Century portrays people at leisure hugging the shade and avoiding sunlight under parasols and wide-brimmed hats.
Then in the 1920's, after a cruise from Paris to Cannes with the Duke of Westminster, French fashion designer, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel boldly showed up at the fashion shows flaunting her bronze body. Tan skin became almost instantly associated with leisure travel, propelling suntans to high fashion and status symbol popularity.
Fashions and cosmetics kept pace. Clothes became skimpier, shoes were worn without stockings and sleeveless dresses in vogue. Powders and creams in shades of beige and bronze were created for the places the sun had missed. With the ease of travel increasing, seaside Holidays were more and more within reach of the general population and the human quest for status symbols ever motivating, the suntan had arrived, representing wealth and leisure.
Advancing technology in motion pictures, brought color to the big screen in the1930s. Rosy cheeks and tan skin became ever more popular as fashion trends were increasingly freeing women from confining clothes and women were becoming increasingly active in outdoor recreation. Poolside lounging and socializing became synonymous with Hollywood, and later epitomizing the "California lifestyle", chock full of leisure and sunshine. The 1960s brought the California beach scene and the Beach Party Bingo gang into movie theaters and living rooms across the land. By the 1970's an entire generation had followed suit and baked in the sun, totally oblivious that the sun exposure of their youth would develop into skin cancers 10 to 20 years later.
Home tanning lamps started showing up in the late 1940's and the indoor tanning industry was born. Tanning salons became popular in the 1970s and by the 1980s had taken a firm hold in the United States, and now claim 23 million clients a year.
The skin is composed of two main layers. The Dermis provides the structure with the collagen fibers, elastin and blood vessels. The Epidermis, the protective outermost layer, is made up primarily of keratinocytes constantly dividing and pushing the cells above them to the surface. We produce over one million new keratinocytes each day. As they move towards the surface, they loose their organelles and fill with keratin proteins. At the surface, they are flattened and are mere scales of keratin, which eventually flake off.
The UV rays of the sun stimulate the melanocytes in the bottom layer of the skin's epidermis to produce a substance called melanin, which protects the skin and gives it color. The melanocytes increase in activity producing more and more melanin but the melanocytes themselves do not increase in number. The more skin is exposed to these UV rays, the darker the tan becomes. A tan is our body's desperate attempt to protect itself from these harmful rays. A sunburn results when not enough melanin can be produced to counteract the UV rays being absorbed by the skin. Melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, is caused by UV damage to the melanocytes.
UV rays are the archenemy of skin, regardless of whether from the sun or indoor tanning devices. UV exposure irritates the skin and deprives it of moisture, leading to a thicker texture, lower metabolism and further deterioration. Both types of ultraviolet light, UVA and UVB, will cause photodamage to the skin which can result in wrinkling, premature skin aging, as well as injury to the eyes and the body's immune system.
But that's not the worst of what they do. While UVB rays cause the surface burning of the skin, UVA rays penetrate deeper into the dermis causing damage that interferes with DNA/RNA reproduction, resulting in skin cancers and cell mutations. UVA rays are also associated with the deterioration of the elastin and collagen fibers, causing photo-aging, sagging and wrinkles. www.epa.gov/sunwise/uvandhealth.html
The damage that occurs from UV exposure is long-term and cumulative. There are many studies that associate UV exposure from tanning beds and the sun in adolescent years, with cancer and skin damage that materialize later in life. Your skin will remember every bit of sun it has ever had. Ronald Siegle, a skin cancer specialist at The James Cancer Hospital, Columbus Ohio, notes that these skin cancers …"grow very slowly and the individuals often continue to get skin cancers their entire lives." In 1988 the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) held a consensus conference on photo aging and photo damage. The conclusion from that conference was that "there is no safe way to tan."
So what are your options? Sun Bathing? Tanning Beds? Self-Tanning Creams? Spray on Tanning Booths? Airbrush Tanning? Click on the menu options above that you are interested in learning about.
American Academy of Dermatology: Darker Side of Tanning
American Academy of Dermatology Indoor Tanning: All the
Dangers of the Outdoor Sun, Including Skin Cancer
E: The Environmental Magazine Dangerous Tans
USA Today: Looking at SKIN CANCER in a Different Light
Dermatology Times: Tanning beds linked to NMSC
Federal Trade Commission: Warning on Indoor Tanning
Food and Drug Administration: Warning on Indoor Tanning
Canadian Cancer Society: Sun Myths
Canadian Cancer Society: Tanning Parlours
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