I got a thing for corny high school TV shows. I know they are ridiculous but sometimes it is nice to just relax and watch something simple. After an intensive Gossip Girl marathon last spring I decided to change from the East to the West coast and started to watch 90210.
During the first episodes I was quite shocked how incredibly skinny and unnaturally tanned everybody was. My friend Gianna could not understand my reaction and we started a long discussion about whether being tanned is still cool and sexy or cheap and soo 80s.
I have the feeling that more and more people actually prefer a natural skin tone. In particular solarium tanning is not considered as a status symbol anymore as it was during the 1980s when it was new and only few people could afford it.
Another aspect that influenced the image of tanned skin is the whole discussion about skin cancer. I think people have become more careful and avoid for instance the midday sun.
However, I have to admit, the situation might be a little bit different in Sweden. As soon as it is getting warmer, people are lying in the sun. I am not sure if this is just about being suntanned or if it is a reaction to the harsh and long winter – probably both.
Personally I like pale porcelain skin but I don’t mind when I am a little bit tanned during summer. Don’t misunderstand me. If somebody naturally has a more exotic skin tone I think it looks very beautiful but going to the solarium three times a week with the result that the skin tone becomes orange will definitely look cheap.
Well, I haven’t always thought like that. When I was in high school I loved tanned skin. I was one of these girls who went to the solarium three times a week and used self-bronzer to darken my skin as much as possible. When I see old pictures I think I look terrible with my super tanned, kind of orange, skin…like a Barbie.
I am curious what you think about tanned skin. Cool and sexy or cheap and sooo 80s?
2001 and 2010.
Such a beatiful girl as you are looks definitively better with a pale skin.
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This is certainly a weighty matter, at the contested border of aesthetics and ethics, approaching the key intersection of art and morality, worthy of deliberation by prominent philosophers and key public figures with utmost gravity and seriousness!
However, after much consideration, following the dispatch of the most careful judgment of which I am capable, I feel inclined to conclude, that one cannot with absolute certainty disprove, this dramatic alternative… this frightful possibility… that there isn’t really much difference, one way or the other!
hihi..
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I, too, used to tan a lot around 1998-2002. It felt as if the only way to look “healthy” and attractive was to be brown (or, for us very white people, a sad shade of orange). I never really liked the tanned look, but did not want to look less attractive, either. Now I regret tanning (i.e., damaging my skin) and caving in to peer pressure, and definitely prefer the look of a healthy natural skin tone. You know what??? I think it was all Prada’s fault. In fact, in the early 90’s no-one tanned any more (it felt so 80’s, fake and old-fashioned), then Prada launched the no-stockings (no-pantyhose) bare-legs look, and suddenly you had to sport perfectly tanned legs in January. From that followed the whole late-90’s tanning craze, I think. But that is just my guess.
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Correction: in the early *and mid-90’s* until approx. 1996-97 no-one tanned any more
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PPS: It also didn’t help that the trendy “minimalist” colours back then were grey and beige/nude – both unforgivingly unflattering to fair-skinned people, especially in the dead of winter.
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Having spent the past 1.5 years in pretty much constant sunshine, my partner who was a Swede of the “grab as much sun as possible, I need to burn to get a base layer, your tan (i.e. burned skin) looks fabulous” persuasion, now laughs at her friends wasting time with their tanning oil, rather than her minimum factor 15. Look at any older Swedish lady in the area just above her chest and see how many years older it looks than her. We met so many people affected by skin cancer and it really scared us!
I think our kids will be shocked that we use to actually purposely try to get a tan, much in the same way I am shocked my parents use to smoke in lecture theatres, buses, cinemas, etc (and actually that they smoked at all!).
Great article and I definitely prefer natural and unaged!
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I think you need to use sunscreen everyday but a healthy tan looks good on everyone. I myself have my farmers tan going I don’t care I use spf80 and I still end up with a tan. But I don’t just go out and lye down and sun whorship either I tend to things early in the morning or later on in the evening when it is cooler.
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looking like an ooompa loompa isnt attractive at all….
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Personally I’ve always been fond of the ‘boiled lobster’ look of the over-exposed first tan of the season… If only it didn’t hurt so much.
Nah, seriously, a good tan looks nice. An orange fake-ish tan, not so much.
Pale skin also looks nice, though not on a person that looks unhealthy.
On a healthy person a pale skin usually has a kind of underlying vitality (any skin colour on a healthy person does, really).
If you’re sick or too tired with a pale skin you end up looking more like a zombie.
At least that’s what my mirror tells me.
Often get a farmer’s tan in the summers myself, due to frequently being outdoors in my job.
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You look much better in the fair-skinned picture. And the glasses and striped shirt combo are super adorable
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If it looks good that is questionable but it is a matter of personal taste. But just look at Bridgette Bardoe (spelling ?) she wrinkled up at a very young age because of too much sun. If you want to look good longer do not suntan.
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Well, as a grad student working on photoimmuniology, i can say that the sun is good and bad for you. Exposure to the sun and therfore UVB rays induces the cell to produce melanin( the colouring pigment of the skin) which protects DNA from UVB induced breakage and darkens the skin. The other effect is that in converts sterolic compounds int Vitamin D which is pumped into the bloodstream. Vitamin D is required in immune responses(although the specifics are still not mapped out) and it allows for the absorption of calcium from food we eat( thus preventing rickets).
Now fair skinned people do not need to tan a lot due to their natural lack of melanin. low amounts of melanin increase the production of vitamin D( the cellsdo not block UVB rays and can convert sterols into vitamin D), while dark skinned people who have more melanin in their basal stratus of the skin epidermis need to be exposed longer to obtain enough vitamin D. So tan in moderation according to your skin’s needs. Too little and you get rickets, too much and you increase your chance of getting skin cancer.
you look better when you are fair.
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Basically, I think that using sunscreen on a daily basis is excessive and a little paranoid, but I would no longer try to tan systematically.
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Before people start following the author into whitedom they might like to consider that the scientific health community is now far more concerned that paranoid folk covering themselves in hats, shades, scarves and factor 50 sun creams arent getting enough sun, which means theyre not getting enough natural vitamin D, which in turn is leading to an escalation in diseases, including cancer.
This is particularly true in Scandinavia where many people suffer from a lack of vitamin D due to the long dark winters. The summer is the bodys opportunity to stock up on vitamin D again. Or not if you get fixated on bizarre ideas like a suntan is “so 1980s”.
The best advice is to get out on the sun for up to 20 minutes a day unprotected, and then to use a sun cream after that so that you dont burn. Burning is bad. Expect to get a tan and welcome it knowing all the good that vitamin D is doing your brain and other vital organs.
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Hugo, I totally agree with you, but I don’ think Mareike was referring to just being out in the sun for 20 min. a day. I might be wrong, but I believe she was referring to those of us who regularly used tanning beds (that emit UVA light, and not the healthy UVB radiation) to look brown and toasty year-round.
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Exactly, Julie! Sorry that I reply so late but due to some wrong settings I didn’t receive any emails when you commented.
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Tanning under the sun and in the tanning tub are deffinately not in fashion any more. To go further, it is really bad for your skin and you’ll see it when turn 50. I am 25 btw, just to exclude unnecessary comments. What is in fashion now is salf-tanning lotion. it is harmless for the skin, timely economical, and it is always nice to look a little bit fresher and tanner than the others, especially in December!
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Thin, toned girls of any skin color can be sexy. As long as you’re doing cardio you’ll get some blood in your skin and not look sickly. After being healthy it’s just a matter of style.
The trick is to make sure hair, eyes, and skin all complement. I personally am very attracted to red haired or black haired girls with long hair, bright eyes (blue, green, hazel), and maybe a little lipstick on, in a black dress. I find them stunning. Because then you have all the contrasts working. Like Keira Knightley, or Angelina Jolie. I’ll see girls with bright blue eyes and red hair in real life, working this look, aww to die for
.
If your skin is tan, then to get the contrasts you need lighter colors, like blonde hair, bright colors or white top, to emphasize the body, maybe some dark eyeliner since the skin is already dark it doesn’t look too tacky, but pulls the eyes to the face. Like Adriana Lima, or the tanned blonde girl next door.
What looks tacky is when people try to use things that don’t complement naturally and draw the eye to you pleasantly. Like the bleached, fake bake bimbo look, it tries draw the eye, but ends up overdoing it and pulling the eye to maybe just the breasts and all the garish contrasts. A beautiful woman is like a well designed classical painting, she should cause the eye to move around and appreciate everything, but most especially the face, but not just say the boobs or the weird fake tan.
There’s no saying white skin isn’t beautiful that’s like saying Michelangelo didn’t produce beautiful works because he was Italian, and Picasso did because he was Spanish. It just depends on the whole presentation. Now none of the great artists are ordinary and all of them have style — that is the key, not to just fit in and look like everyone else, but to look better.
Now of course tanning significantly will age your skin, so personally I think it’s dumb. Men are visual creatures, why age yourself prematurely, when there are other looks like a light tan or pale skin that you can work depending on your features.
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We still think a nice tan is way better. It just look’s way healthier.
The pale look, especially combined with dark colours gives most people a bit of a gothic look. Now we don’t want that do we?
But don’t go to far with it,.. stop before you reach the 80`s
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