Tanning: Outdoors, Indoors, Bottle, Spray, or Not At All?

[Maddy McCall]

Poll question: Tanning: Outdoors, Indoors, Bottle, Spray, or Not At All?

I've been hearing a lot about melanoma and suntan beds. Are suntan beds worse for causing skin cancer than the sun?

So, which do you do?

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Come on, heliophobes! Vote already!

:)

[Kali]

2. vanity

combined with the extreme heat of southern Arizona. Work outdoors a lot, can't stand too many clothes when its hot. Tan and long hair - all I got left of my youth! ha ha ha

No lying in the sun on purpose, though no hesitation to jump in pool at peak sun time - 1 or 2 in afternoon.

[flamingyouth]

3. I'm shockingly pale

Sun doesn't agree with me, unfortunately. I have to slather myself in sunscreen before I sit on the beach or read out in the sun.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. I bet I'm a whiter shade of pale.....

:)

[ForrestGump]

5. Sunbathing is boooooooooooooring....

I still get tanned (actually, usually either fully sunburned or just a smidgin of color) in the process of doing outdoors activities, but when I'm in a very high-exsposure setting (e.g. out on the water) I try to keep pretty slathered with sunscreen -- usually come back from the tropics with a classic (and very odd-looking) diver's tan.

[Liberal Veteran]

6. Waterskiing guy looks like he's been in Frankenfurter's closet.

All he needs is some eyeliner and a feather boa.

[supernova]

10. Ohh, tan lines

:D

I don't lie out either. I get overheated just lying there.
I'm fairly pale so I try not to get too much sun. Sunscreen is the rule at my house.

edit: in the height of summer, I'm not above using makeup bronzers to look a little more sun-kissed.

[cally]

7. With a sister who had/has melonoma, I'm fanatic

about sunblock and hats. I've always found laying out in the sun boring which is very lucky for me. As a warning for those younger than me, I've rarely applied sunblock to my hands because they don't burn. I now have age spots on them :eyes: and I sure wish I had applied the sunblock I use to my hands also.

[TrogL]

8. I get a warm-up tan at a tanning bed then switch to outdoors

Yes, I know I'm going to die of cancer. Better that than depression.

[TahitiNut]

20. Agreed. On all counts.

I get a "base" tan on the tanning bed at the beginning of the season or before a vacation in the sun. Way back, when I planned my first trip to Tahiti, I decided there was no way I was going to be hiding in the shade with all that ocean and sand around. So, I did a couple of weeks of every-other-day tanning bed sessions, working up to the max of 25 minutes on the bed. When I got to Tahiti, I was able to do treks around the beach of uninhabited islands, scuba dive, and swim all day looong - without a worry and just the minimum of lotion. It works for me.

My dermatologists have always given me a 'pass' on tanning, finding no sun sensitivity to my skin whatsoever.

And "fun in the sun" is the best antidote to depression I've found.

[TrogL]

21. I'm probably dead already

From what I understand, it's exposure in childhood that really causes the most problems.

My parents had a swimming pool and I'd spend hours in the sun. My mother, bless her soul, would announce "he gets so dark I'm afraid he'll be mistaken for a negro". *sigh*

Remember, this is the years before sunscreen had even been invented.

Even if it existed, no lotions were allowed because they would clog the pool filter.

[TahitiNut]

23. I get darker than a Tahitian and some of my African-American friends.

But my normally dirty blond hair gets "surfer light" and I get accused of using bleach. (Nope, just sun and water, either salt or chlorinated.) It was the same when I was a kid.

[Dropkick]

9. Reddish-haired, blue eyed Irish girls...

...don't tan, we fry just by looking out the window. I slather on as thick a layer of super high SPF as I can, and avoid sunlight between 10 and 4.

Not doing those things, I could easily get a job in a sideshow as lobster-girl.

[tcfrogs]

11. Farmer's tan only for me

Too much golf will do that to you.

[supernova]

12. Does anybody else get a rash from high spf sunscreen?

I tried a 45-50 spf sunscreen and I got a rash (non-itchy variety; more like prickly heat) everywhere I put it on. :shrug:

30 seems to be as high as I can go, w/o the rash. Anybody else experience this?

[cally]

13. My Dad's allergic to most of them

I'll find out in a few days and send you a PM about which brands are least allergenic. If I remember correctly, the PABA is what causes most allergies and there are a few brands without it. I'm luckily not allergic to most.

[supernova]

14. Thanks, I suspected

the PABA might be the culprit. But if there's one I can use that dosen't irriate my skin, I'd love to know what it is.

HA! And they said it was hypo-allergenic. :P

[SarahB]

15. Unless I'm going to be seriously sweating or swimming....

I use Oil of Olay SPF 15 on my body. I find that the other stuff can be irritating too. Often the products they say are meant for "babies" work for my skin too.

And the answer to the main question is obviously, no tanning. Sometimes I get a little color just being busy outside, but being a fair-haired, green eyed, and naturally super pale person, that's not saying much. As I said last week, I'm now content with my paleness.

Edit: grammar issues :)

[SW FL Dem]

16. I live in Florida - even with sunscreen, I tan

I know the dangers. I have lived in sunny places for almost 40 years. I lost a step dad to Melanoma. Luckily my skin doesn't burn and so far isn't showing too many signs of sun damage.

[Cheswick2.0]

17. After I live in florida for a few years

and met all these 60 year old women who looked like leather luggage, I got over the idea of tanning. Unfortunately as white as I am I have had many many bad burns over the years.
I now avoid the sun and I do not find tanned skin attractive on anyone. To me it just looks like dead cooked flesh....which is what it is. Mnnnn crispy dead tissue, how sexy!

[RebelOne]

29. I lived in South Florida most of my life.

And I avoided the sun whenever possible. I had too many friends and even my own mother who had skin cancer.

[Dogmudgeon]

18. I never "got" tanning

So many people think it's attractive. How did that happen? It's absurd, all the more so because it has serious helath risks.

I don't dislike people who tan ... I just don't get it.

--bkl
Pale and Precious

[jmowreader]

19. I have a forklift tan

When I go outside to bring something in on a forklift, the sun hits my skin and it turns dark.

The rest of the time, I like to stay indoors.

[Zomby Woof]

22. Spf45 sunscrren

I even put it under my eyelids.. although it does sting...

[kevinam]

24. outdoors, but both.

I rarely have time, or desire to spend a bunch of hours just laying out by the pool tanning, but an hour here or there, I will go for while listening to a game or something. I also do a fair amount of stuff outside. I play softball/yardwork, and from that I have this awful "redneck", and a fairly typical farmers tan, with tan line across lower leg from socks. It is just classic and awful. I don't want to be super dark, just a little color...Kevin.

[Dastard Stepchild]

25. I prefer a pasty white...

Quite like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, sans that jaunty little hat.

I used a tanning bed once. Once. I got sun poisoning and was sick for days.

[HEyHEY]

26. Tanning? They'll kick me outta the Irish gene pool for that offense

[NMDemDist2]

27. i chose other

i avoided the sun like the plague until i was over 40, now I tan every year by reading on the floaty chair in my pool

i figure it's too late now to do any damage to my skin, but I am still careful not to overdo

[No2W2004]

28. This is the tan I like

[Riptide]

30. I get tanned, even if I use sun screen...

My kids are on the swim team, so I do spend time in the sun. I always use SPF 30, but I still get very dark anyway. My grandmother was a Native American, so that may be why. I am really not dark in the winter, I just tan very quickly and darkly in the summer. With the exception of my grandmother, the rest of my family is British.

My son is just like me, but my two daughters have blonde hair and fair skin. I have to be especially vigilant with their sun screen.