April 11, 2016 • 66 mins
Suntanned skin became a seasonal beauty standard for wealthy white women in the 1920s. Cristen and Caroline explore the class and colorism behind our tanning tradition and spotlight why there's far more than Coco Chanel's revolutionary sunburn.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how stupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Christman
and I'm Caroline. And today on the show it's two
pale white girls talking about tanning. That's right. My whole
life I have been blindingly white. Um My Scottish Irish
(00:28):
heritage would have it no other way. I am so
white that a few years ago, I say a few
it's probably like fifteen or ten years ago, my friend's
mother saw me in a bathing suit and said, Caroline,
you are glowing. And she didn't say this because I
was pregnant. She you know, thank god, she said it
(00:48):
because I was so white and standing in the sun.
Sounds like she really had a way with words. She
really did. Uh. And so I have since then, not
because of that, but just over the course of my life.
Every summer I buy tanning creams. Uh. Not because of
the mom, No, not because of her. That was just
(01:10):
like a part of what I already knew, Kristen, which
is that I'm blinding. When you put me in the sun,
I'm like a mirror. I'm like a reflective surface, just
beaming light back into space. I mean that sounds kind
of cool. Yeah, I'm it's basically my superpower. And so
I have tried out many a tanning cream and I
(01:31):
think I prefer, honestly, like good old Jurgen's, like the
lotion that you used to build up a gradual tan. Listen,
don't lose your superpower, though, Caroline. I mean you could
be blinding street harassers left and right. Someone whistles or
honks that you you just rip off your shirt. Look
at my forearm. So a few weeks ago, I debuted
(01:57):
my spring legs in public for the first time, and
I thought for I debated it all day in my head.
And this is a little embarrassing to admit whether I
should take an Instagram photo or not just to share
with the world, because it was truly astonishing. That's how
(02:17):
I feel every year looking at myself in the mirror.
This is this is truly astonishing. Um, I got my
first spray tan ever last year. Do tell you and
I were on our way to New York to have
our pictures taken in our underwear. Oh my gosh, dont
we sounds so glamorous, scare a lot or creepy, But
(02:39):
this was for dear Kate underwear and I got a
spray tan, but I made sure, because I am so pasty,
not to go very dark. I specifically requested like a
light honey hued spray tan, just to make sure that
I didn't like blend in with the white background of
(03:01):
the photo shoot, just so that I actually stood out,
so we didn't just look like a floating tank top
like floating bangs. Tank top and underpants. Again, it sounds
pretty cool the way you describe this, but yeah, but
but I was conscious of I don't want to look
fake or tacky. I want to look like a nice, honey, huge,
(03:26):
sun tanned, happy, healthy version of myself. And it looked great. Thanks.
But I have a question. It might be t m I.
I've got a question for you about your spray tan experience. Yes,
was it one of those spray tan salons where you
have to get completely naked and the person sprays you
by hand, ma'am? What was that like? And did they
(03:50):
on your rear make you bend over? Oh? No, yes
and no. Um, so I didn't get fully naked or naked,
but I wasn't up to anything, so it's really just
snake it. Um. I stripped down to my underpants and
bloomers and a and a very very nice, very nice
young woman, uh, sprayed me and you know, I have
(04:12):
to stand like I'm in the security check at the
airport and instead of you're not like bending all the
way over. I'm not going to make a bad joke. Um,
I just sort of like pitched forward a little bit
like I was losing my balance and that's the way
that she got up in there and next thing you
knew you were twerking and it just got so awkward.
(04:35):
Yeah it was, Yeah, you forgot where you were, I know,
like I always do. So we have so much to
talk about in this standing episode because listeners, we're not
just going to talk about how you get a tan
and melanoma risks and things like that, because we have
talked about skin cancer and tanning on the podcast before,
(04:57):
but in this episode, we really want to dig into
more of the cultural aspects of it. Why it's popular,
especially for pascy skinned white ladies like myself and and you.
But really, I mean, like I'm I'm in that glove too, uh,
and the class and race issues that also are so
(05:18):
embedded in our whole tanning culture because I mean, forever
and ever, Historically speaking, paleness, almost translucent skin has been
the epitome of beauty, and it hasn't been until the
last about century that we've started seeing this kind of
(05:41):
cycle of no tanning is prettier, No paleness is prettier,
No tanning is prettier. And it seems like that cycle
is speeding up, because, as Kristen and I were talking
about before the podcast, before we came into record, you
have pale beauty, but then in like the nineties and
we were growing up, you also had hypertan Britney Spears,
(06:03):
you had Christina Aguilera who was hypertan. Yeah, I went
to the tanning bed when I in my senior year
of high school, like regularly. Yes, I got real basic
that year. I'm just saying, But now, I mean, it
seems like and I mean, I guess it depends on
(06:24):
and I mean, we'll we'll flush this out a little
bit more in the episode, And it depends on your
social group, what is considered most attractive and normal. It
depends on the magazines and media you consume what's considered
most attractive and beautiful. But I feel like you've got
some people who want to achieve the you know, Jessica
album glow, which is not so much a glover as
(06:47):
it's her literal skin color. And then you've got other
people who look at you know, super translucent high fashion models,
and that's more what they aspire to now, Yeah, be honest.
So Caroline, before we came into the podcast studio, you
are arguing that the Jessica, Alba, Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, who,
(07:08):
by the way, these are all like wildly different skin tones,
but that the more honey huge look, as it would
be described, is the in look. Now. Yes, And as
we talked about it, I think it's like I was saying,
I think it depends on what is normal and beautiful
around you. So for instance, depending on, like I said,
(07:33):
your social group or what your friends look like, that
normalizes whatever the beauty standard is. Um. But also it
looks like it depends on age groups too, as we'll
talk about later in the podcast, because by and large,
the people who are going to tanning beds and are
committed to tanning like once a month at least, tend
(07:56):
to be younger women, and statistically a lot of them
are in sororities, which is really interesting. So this could
be just an issue like achieving color wise of different
age and socioeconomic groups. Yeah, I mean so, and listeners,
I really want you to weigh in on this because
(08:17):
I contended that the popularity of of say Beyonce and
Kim Kardashian has little to do with skin color, and
as it relates to tanning, has little to do with
skin color and more to do with body shape and
how are like beauty ideals in terms of the quote
(08:37):
unquote sexiest female shape has changed, you know, more towards
um those kinds of body shapes. Because I don't think
that any like white sorority girls are going to the
tanning bed so that they can look like Beyonce. And
if they are, I'm a little concerned about them, to
be completely honest. Yeah, yes, do you have people who
(08:59):
have maybe tanning obsessions? Yes, that is the thing people
who get addicted to tanning. Is your average girl who's
in a sorority addicted to tanning so she can look
like Beyonce? Probably not um, But the very fact that
that could be a possibility that white people like us
can get in the tanning bed, get in the sun,
(09:20):
get in the spray tann booth and play around with
our color and achieve social status as a result of
It also speaks to a lot of privilege too that
we're going to get into, because it's not like Beyonce
can get into a spray tan and get like, you know,
a white look. She can't get like the Emma Stone. Yeah, exactly,
(09:40):
And I you know that's that sort of leads us
into the conversation of black women enjoying tanning as well.
It's not like this is just for white sorority girls
to enjoy or to pursue, um, but I mean it
hasn't always been like that for black women either. In general.
Of course, we're speaking in general terms. The embracing of
(10:04):
not only do I have the skin color, but you know,
in the summer, I want to get bronze too. This
isn't just like a white girl thing. And that is
exactly the theme of pretty much any blog post or
article written by like a woman of color about tanning.
Like the headline is usually in all caps, Yes, black
women do tan and we can get tann. I mean
(10:25):
there's even this notion that African Americans aren't even capable
of tanning, which I don't really understand because that, you know,
demonstrates that person doesn't understand how like Melana sites work
and skin pigment and how we react to this to
the sun. Um. But it's not just an issue of possibly,
(10:47):
you know, your skin darkening as a result of being
in the sun, but actually wanting to get that look
at that bronzed glow. Yeah. And I mean, hello, we've
been reading or I've been reading women's magazines forever that
tut tanning real or fake, you know, tanning bed sun
or suncream as a way to hide flaws, concealed cellulite,
(11:12):
make yourself look a little thinner or whatever, or just
like you've been on vacation, which again ties into the
whole like class and leisure thing, which we'll get into. Um.
But yeah, again, this is that is a a driving
force for a lot of people, no matter your ethnicity.
I have a one of my best friends is Korean,
(11:32):
and I realized one of my best friends is Korean.
It's not like that, um, And every summer she just
she loves tanning. She loves to get a bronze look.
And she was telling me about how some of her
friends back home were like, you know, why do you
need to get darker. You're already like beige. You know,
you're fine. And but she loved getting those tand lines
(11:53):
in the summer, getting a little darker, getting a little
color so that you don't look, as she put it,
like sick when you go back from summer vacation. Yeah.
I mean, because of course in Asia it's far likelier
that the beauty ideal is to be as pale as possible.
You'll see you know, women walking around with umbrellas and
big hats on, you know, shading the sun as much
(12:14):
as possible. Um. But I do want to get back
really quickly to black women tanning for a minute, because
this definitely is going to tie into our next podcast,
which is all about colorism. Um. In a having in
post blog about yes black girls also tan, Melissa Henderson
(12:36):
wrote something that jumped out to me. Um. She wrote,
black girl's tan to these girls are not one type
of people. It's just putting colorism in another category, letting
other morals take precedence in one's life. So whether you
choose to instagram your tan or prefer sitting pool side,
tanning is a beautiful thing and that in distance that
(13:02):
yes we we tan. And also, hey, It's totally fine
and not weird at all that we would want a
tan is another theme that you see in a lot
of these blog posts, in particular, like first person pieces
about it. UM. For instance, there was a piece over
at black Girl Long Hair talking about UM. I think
(13:22):
it was a beauty blogger who a few years ago
put up a side by side of her before and
after getting a spray tan and um. It was on
YouTube and half the comments were really supportive, saying, oh,
you know, I was about to do with a spray
tan too, I'm glad to see that it looks good, etcetera, etcetera,
and in the other half being completely dumbfounded as to
(13:47):
why on earth would you want to be darker you
have you look so much better with lighter skin. And
that question though, which the blogger raised in relation to
that of is it's seeding a quote unquote pri blitch it.
We'll talk about more in the next episode that comes
with lighter skin and how like strange that might seem.
(14:07):
But the reasons for for tanning and wanting, you know,
to to play around with maybe fake tanners, spray tans,
things like that are the same reasons that a lot
of us are interested in getting a little bit of
a tan because it often even even out your skin tone.
It can mask uh cellulite and other quote unquote flaws
(14:28):
and blemishes, and also laying out in the sun, as
we'll talk about more. I mean, it just it feels
good physiologically, releases all this happy chemicals. Yeah, for us
to get that vitamin D. So I feel like, which
is not a euphemism, So I feel like it's pretty
racist to assume that uh, black women in particular should
(14:49):
not want a tan and that it would be weird
if they did. Yeah. Well, I mean but there's so
many interesting, uh class discussions to be had when it
to tanning and color, because where is that line? You know,
we we look at someone who has got a nice,
you know, quote unquote natural tan, and we're like, oh,
(15:11):
she looks rested and healthy. Is that what you thought
when you saw my calves a couple of weeks ago? Yes,
I was like, those calves look so healthy. They look
like they've been hibernating all winter, they've been on a vacation.
You can see the patches of really long hair that
I missed in my first shave of the season. Um,
(15:32):
I like to picture a conger hibernation. You're just like
hold up with like some glamor magazines and a laptop,
some like granola. But then clearly we enter a different
arena of class discussion and appropriateness when we get to
people like Snooky, who once told an interviewer that her
(15:55):
ethnicity is tan and someone who like tan mom. Do
you remember this woman who has well, she has legitimate
addiction issues, she legitimately has mental health issues, and she's
gotten a lot of trouble because she took her like
four year old to a tanning salon. And but she
literally was the color of my leather laptop bag that
(16:19):
I carry around And now I was just reading an
update on her. She has moved from being addicted to
tanning to now being obsessed with botox. So like, that's
a whole different issue. But this is something that William
lou who's the author of the book Social Class and
Classism in the Helping Professions, writes about. He talks about
(16:40):
this spectrum of like tanning being okay or not okay,
or signifying class or not. So you've got stereotypes about
people with quote unquote rednecks or farmer's tans, and he's
he writes about how in our minds, in popular imagination,
this equates to white trash people who do man, you
will labor outside. Who aren't, you know, part of the
(17:02):
leisure class, who aren't going to hop on a cruise ship.
And so he asks if a demarketd tan is a
sign of lower class, what does an all body tan represent? Oh?
I mean it means that it's intentional that you were
going out and tanning, assuming I guess you were at
all like a nude beach or you went to a
(17:23):
tanning bed, if it's like an all body tan. Um.
But yeah, I think it is totally different. That absolutely
resonates to Caroline with being raised in the South, because
that whole quote unquote redneck division between classy and trashy
is very much alive and well. And I remember when
(17:45):
I was a kid, my my parents, how does do
yard work pretty much every weekend, which was so fun,
always um and during the summertime, sometimes I would get
the so called farmers tans and I would be harassed
by it because it would mean, oh, Kristen wasn't at
the pool with all the other kids, she was out
(18:07):
picking up sticks and pine cones and mowing the lawn.
Did you did you ever name the pine cones? Did
you keep any of his pets? Only a few? Only
only Stephen, only Stephen and Richard. Um, don't forget Jennifer
the pine coun Jenniferlte. Well, now, I I remember, you know,
(18:29):
friends having usually boys having like a farmer's tand so
to speak, because they'd be wearing T shirts around or whatever.
And to me back then as a kid, that would
just mean like, oh, you haven't been to the pool. Yeah,
you've been. You've been running around doing other things, not playing.
But I mean, in like my little childhood perception, I
(18:52):
was already so classist in the way that I saw
the quote unquote redneckt and I saying quote unquote because
saying redneck does I mean it's such a pejorative. Um.
I don't think it's a very very nice term. Um,
because it is connected to the whole white trash concept,
(19:13):
and it does in my mind, it takes me straight
to counties right outside of where I grew up that
were much more rural and people tended to spend a
lot more time outside, and that super duper tanned to
the point of being read look is I mean a
byproduct of maybe doing you know, labor outside, maybe working
(19:35):
if you're on a farm, but also a look that
the girls will cultivate to. So that totally, and I
think all of that demonstrates what William lou is talking
about when he wrote how quote tanning becomes another venue
for performing and demonstrating social class both I think in
(19:56):
the uh the act of tanning yourself and also how
we interpret other people's hands. Yeah, because someone like Snooky,
for instance, let's just she's easy to pick on and
use it as an example. But like two, someone who
flips through the pages of Vogue, Snooky might look trashy
(20:19):
because of her choice of tanning depth. And I will say,
because I do follow her on Instagram, Caroline, that she
has eased up on a channing well, but she is
clearly performing and displaying her definition. Like we've talked about
at the very very top of the podcast about the
difference between what you want to achieve in terms of
(20:40):
color and why. But she's clearly performing her version of
classy and attractive totally. I mean the same thing with
the dudes on Jersey Shore who would like go and
get there their spray tans. What is it Jim Jim
Tan laundry, Jim Laundry Tan. Oh yeah, I was like
Jim was one of them named Jim. Forget the gym
(21:01):
was just like there had like a tagline. I think
it was GTL Jim Tan Laundry. Oh man. I just
want to think about like random like bookish Jim that
we never saw on Jersey Shore, who didn't fit in
at all, never went to to the channing bed um.
But let's why don't we happen to why this is
(21:23):
even a thing, because, like you said, historically speaking, it's
bizarre that we like collectively would even attempt to darken
our skin because for mist of beauty history, pale was
where it was at. I mean that's a cross cultural
thing too, but I mean we would apply like potions
(21:45):
on our skin to get as porcelain a look as possible. Yeah,
And that was because pale skin was supposedly a mark
of beauty and wealth and refinement, whereas tan skin meant
you were a peasant. You were those monty python characters
the mud toiling away at manual labor. Uh. Not to mention,
dark skin was of course looked down upon because of
(22:08):
the literal racism aspect, the literal hatred and racism against
brown and black bodies. Uh, and women would maintain their
paleness with parasols, large hats, bleaching treatments, and heavy powders,
not to mention lead based creams that dated back to
(22:31):
ancient Greek and Roman times and in the Renaissance. I thought,
this is so funny. European women would draw blue lines
on their faces to make their skin look translucent. That
sounds so hard to do. I mean that, I mean,
I feel like contouring today. It's really challenging to pull off.
But try vain contouring. I know, what do you what
(22:52):
do you even do? I mean, what kind of beauty
blender could achieve that look? I'm just saying, Caroline, And
you know, literature wasn't on the game too. Milky skin
has always been hailed as the height of beauty and purity.
Folks like Shakespeare wrote sonnets praising it, and early topical
sun protectants. When you when you look at the ingredients,
it really takes me back to our Makeup Artist episode, Kristen,
(23:14):
when we talked about the crazy history of pancake makeup
before max Factor came along. You've got things like white
petrolatum or almond oil mixed with a heavy powder made
of things like magnesium, zinc oxide or bismuth. So sounds
really good for the pores. Really slather that on. Sounds
(23:35):
like um. But we start to see though, tanning slowly
becoming a marker of social class and wealth with the
Industrial Revolution, because around eighteen fifty we start transitioning from
the working class being outside to them being inside in
(23:57):
the factories. So understandably you have tan skin beginning to
emerge as a sign of the leisure class. You have
the time to be outside, you can travel. I mean,
if we go to f Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and
the Damned, which was set in nineteen fourteen and fifteen,
his up across characters talk about how to best achieve
(24:21):
a chan Oh yeah, man, his characters and his books
just love the beach, don't they. God West, Egg Tanning,
Leonardo DiCaprio cheersing with Champagne Gift still have never Yeah,
that's all I know from that movie. I still haven't seen.
I think that's kind of all you need to know. Yeah, okay, good,
It's it's a really effective gift in a lot of situations,
and yes, I do say it with a hard g
write me a letter, um. But you know, not everybody
(24:45):
is on board necessarily. Some people are still worried. You've
got a little bit of benevolent sexism going on. In
nineteen o five, Dr Charles Edward Woodriff wrote in his
book The Effects of Tropical Light on White Men, which
is that a prequel to a tropic of cancer? Well? No, literally, yes,
because sunlight is a precursor to melanoma. Oh my gosh,
(25:10):
look what we just was a really extended pun and
I am proud of us. Yeah, we should be. You
should be anyway, So wood Re wrote, the American girl
is a bundle of nerves. She is a victim of
too much light. But he would prove to be in
the minority because what helped bring aside from just you know,
the lower classes moving into the factories, would helped bring
(25:33):
a nice tan, a nice flush into popularity, was you know,
the entire freaking medical community. Yeah. So, in the early
twentieth century, doctors started realizing how sunlight and the vitamin
D that we get from it can be really healthy
for us, particularly to treat tuberculosis and rickets, and ricketts
(25:58):
is one of those old timing diseases. Yes, Caroline, I
did have to google to make sure I understood what
rickets is. Um And essentially it's a bone softening disorder. Yeah,
because you don't get enough of that vitamin D well
vitamin D, but also you're not getting enough nutritious foods,
you're not getting enough calcium um. It would often kids
with rickets would often have horrific problems with their legs
(26:21):
being misshapen. Uh. So you you get this this rush
of the medical community basically prescribing sunshine to people, which
sounds really nice, but people were winning Nobel prizes over it.
In nineteen o three, Nils Finson won the Nobel Prize
in Medicine by treating skin ulcers caused by lupus vulgaris,
(26:42):
which is a condition linked to TV, with heliotherapy. And
that same year in Switzerland we get the first hospital
treating tuberculous as with sun exposure opening and doctors started
to figure out the scientific basis of heliotherapy in the
nineteen twenties when they discover uv lights role in creating
vitamin D and then for another Nobel Prize. We have
(27:06):
Aidolf wind House earning the Nobel Prize in chemistry for
linking vitamin D with Ricketts treatment. And I mean sunlight
was seen as a preventive measure. Two kids were sent
to preventoriums. I love it, I know, I want to go,
which were institutions that provided sit kiddos with good food,
(27:28):
fresh air, and sunlight, like I do want to go
to there. So they basically sent them to summer camp,
but fancier and more relaxing, no color wars, and good
less pressure than having to like swim the lifeline. Um,
let's bring back the preventorium. I'm dude, I'm all for it,
which really just sounds like I need to build a
(27:49):
greenhouse outside of the office and gets sitting it for
a couple of hours in order some pizza. Right, totally
take my lactaid first. In nineteen thirty eight, Herman Bundieson,
who was the president of the Chicago Board of Health,
really emphasized how important sunlight was for children. Uh He said,
no deficiencies that developing children are of greater significance than
(28:09):
those caused by lack of sunlight. I would argue there
are some bigger problems that kids could face, But now
just sunlight Caroline Ah. He continued on. He said, when
it shines on a child, it helps his bones and
teeth to form properly and promotes the quality and circulation
of his blood. The sun bath is just as important
as the water bath, which reminds me of our Betty
(28:32):
Page episode because Betty Page was such a fan of
uh sun baths in the news. Yes, well, and that
does kind of tie into our next fact about how
sunlight starts becoming prescribed as treatments for all kinds of
things including anemia, syphilis, heart disease, cancer which little ironic there,
(28:55):
stomach problems, and also issues with hormones, arthritis, skin, and
vagina's And I'm just wondering what the exact heliotherapy prescription
would be for your vagina. Yeah, you can't use the
phrase where the sun don't shine anymore? Yeah, because it's like,
do you do you try to get sunlight on the
vagina because that would be hard because I think they
(29:17):
mean volva And I just have a lot of questions now.
I Yeah, when you talk about solving gynecological problems with
the sun, what exactly are you referring to just put
you volva under a heat lamp, all your problems will
go away. Uh, but you know, not everybody was on board.
The New England Journal of Medicine in night their editors
(29:39):
reviewed the book Ultra Violet Raise in the Treatment and
Cure of Disease and they dismissed it as really nothing
more than a giant ad for UV lamps and said
that they hoped the quote unquote lady did not get
their hands on it. But any concerns regarding skin cancer
at this time, we're ignored. Any concerns about this stuff
(30:02):
just being a bunch of fancy snake oil, We're ignored.
And all were outweighed by the perceived benefits. Oh yeah,
esteemed medical journal The Lancet declared in nineteen the face
browned by the sun is regarded as an index of health.
And note though, I mean like we can, you can
peel apart so many layers in just in that statement
(30:24):
of the face browned by the sun is good, not
face if you're born with the brown face not so good. Yeah,
the face browned by genetics, that was not They didn't
include that. So therefore you get a tan that means
you're in good health, which means you're beautiful. Yeah. And
speaking of beauty, we gotta get over to fashion and
(30:47):
hop to the lady who, in pretty much any popular
history of tanning that you read, will be cited as
the one responsible for getting us all to the b
each and sun burning ourselves. Accidentally, that's Coco Chanel, of course. Yeah,
she of the tweed and pearls and Nazi sympathizing. True. Yeah,
(31:11):
that's everything you love is problematic. Um. In nineteen twenty nine,
miss Chanelle caught a little bit too much sun while
cruising around the French riviera. As you do, as you do,
you can't help it, and her take on it shrug.
A girl simply has to be tan, and a golden
tan is the index of chic. And we were looking
(31:32):
at a study that analyzed ads and articles in Harper's
Bazar and Vogue, and it was astonishing to see the
upswing just between like nineteen seven and nineteen twenty nine
and the number of tanning related ads and also tanning
related articles. UM. Back in nine three, Vogue advertised its
(31:56):
first tanning lamp, but those kind of ads were really
few and far. But tween until that pivotal moment. In
for instance, that same year, British Vogue declared, pay attention, Carol, Okay,
this is the backless age. There is no single smarter
gesture than to have every low backed costume cut exactly
(32:19):
on the same lines, so that each one makes a
perfect frame for a smooth brown back. M hmm, yeah, well,
I mean swimsuits. Are they talking about clothes or swimsuits?
I don't know. I mean, I think they're just saying, like,
avoid tan lines and and get get a tan you
(32:40):
pasty white jerks. I mean because I asked that because
over the course of the twenties and thirties we have
stats people swimsuits were shrinking. Skin exposure jumped from eight
percent for women for men to a scandalous of the
skin expose. Man, I would it be nice if swimsuits
(33:02):
still just revealed for scent of our skin. So the
same year British Vogue declared the backless age, don't you know,
American Vogue had a four page spread describing clothes, makeup
and accessories to best show off tanned skin. And they said,
from a chic note, sunburn became a trend, then an
(33:26):
established fashion and now the entire feminine world is sunburned conscious. Yeah. Similarly,
in the same year, June Harper's Bizarre had an issue
titled shall We Gild the Lily, which began with the assertion,
there is no doubt about it, if you haven't a
tanned look about you, you aren't part of the rage
(33:47):
of the moment. Well, and who is the audience for
these magazines? Wealthy white women, women who can afford to
change out their fashion, go to the beach or wherever
they might be to have the rage of the moment look.
And it really only increases as people have more disposable income.
(34:09):
I mean, the tanning fat is really inextricably linked with
socio economics. Yeah, but I mean again, the people who
are reading these high fashion magazines, being those fair skinned,
hooper class white ladies, are the ones who shouldn't be
unprotected in the sun. And so at this time, the
(34:30):
same time that we're seeing this backless trend, in this
tanning trend take off, we're also collecting growing evidence in
the medical community that UV radiation leads to tumor growth
in animals. And you get more studies that associate UV
rays with skin cancer in humans, and by the we're
seeing this huge increase in melanoma, which continues to rise
(34:54):
throughout the twentieth century, and non melanoma skin cancer becomes
the most common cancer in the world in the twentieth century.
But that doesn't stop anyone from getting out in the sun. Yeah,
I mean, because who doesn't want to be the rage
of the moment? I mean that weighed against cancer. I mean,
(35:15):
come on, I think that. I think Vogue wins. Obviously
you gotta die of something, right, Oh god, this podcast
just got so bleak. Yeah, totally. So let's go to
France for paid vacation UM. France introduced paid vacations in
the thirties and by the forties this had spread and
(35:35):
you see increased travel, outdoor activities and pop culture that's
even more favorable to tanning and also revealing clothes and swimsuits.
And you probably see this permeating pop culture as well,
whether it's films that take place on the beach and
showmen and women around pools being glamorous in their swimsuits.
(35:56):
UM or of course you know you have your your
fashion magazines are teaching you exactly how you should look
well in NTE. Hello, war fabric rations meant that women
swimwear had to shrink by ten per cent. And this
swimsuit shrinkage opens the door to something you and I
(36:16):
have talked about on the podcast before, Kristen, the eventual
invention of the bikini in nine which this leaves eighty
percent of your skin open to the sun, and so
you've got so much more skin to tan, so many
more outfits to feature all of that non genetic brown skin.
(36:36):
And listen, during World War Two, ladies were busy. Rose
of the riveters didn't necessarily have time to go to
the beach and go get a tan directly from the sun.
So during the war, women would actually rely on tea
bags to stain their skin. And apparently in Britain there
was some marmite ish sounding paste or bullion that they
(36:58):
would use. They would so their legs in that people soup,
people soup, We're just making people soup. They soak their legs,
legs and soil and green and no, it just sounds
like let's fill up the hot tub, throw in some
boolly on cubes and let's all go for a soak. Yeah,
it's horrifying. Again, this podcast got so dark. Yeah, exactly panning.
(37:21):
So in the fifties, though in the in the post
World War two era, we're like, hey, the g I
s are coming home. You probably already have a tan
because you've been outside a lot. But let's let's replicate
that trenched tan. Yes, you have man tan in the fifties,
which is the first commercially available self tanner, I believe
(37:42):
for men, especially designed for men, which especially designed is
in quotes because it's probably the exact same thing is
what was being sold to women, but maybe smelled differently. Um,
and it promised to be moisturizing and long lasting. Yeah,
it just smells like pine trees and cigarettes. It's like
Don Draper's office oppression. Uh. Well, by the nineteen sixties,
(38:04):
you know, we we've we've seen the subtext here is
the rising middle class, the rise of leisure, the rise
of vacations, and so by the nineteen sixties people have
enough money to enjoy color films so you better look good,
and commercial air travel, and by the seventies the world
economy was tanking thanks war. Uh. Sunless tanning really takes
(38:26):
the place of all of those Mediterranean vacations that people
in Europe, specifically we're taking nineteen seventy eight tanning beds
get introduced, and the first one, which I never knew
in the US, opens in Arkansas. Walmart and tanning beds.
Oh Arkansas listeners. Hey, And if you jumped to nine
(38:47):
eight one, you've got about ten new tanning centers opening
in the US each week. By in the US alone,
you have eighteen thous and tanning centers. Oh yeah, that's
a lot of tanning. And typically, like nowadays, you look
around and tanning there they are next to Walmarts. You've
(39:09):
got like a Walmart in a nail place and a
tanning place and a radio shack. Oh the radio shack.
I like my dad, I think there's some still open. Okay,
because Chad goes there. Someone let us know about radio shack. Um. Yeah.
Growing up in a college town, there were tanning salons
(39:31):
everywhere everywhere. But I feel like now Caroline, where we
are in town in Atlanta, were likelier to see more
spray tan outlets than we are tanning bed spots or
places that do both. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just
kind of talking well, I mean, I think I don't
know from what I've observed in kind of bougier neighborhoods
(39:56):
you're likely to see spray tan. Yeah, well, I mean
more class issues that we can dive into. It doesn't
stop people, It don't stop you can't. Sunscreen won't protect
you against the rest of this episode. Yes, because we're
not done in the nineteen eighties. You've got all of
that glamorous, like eighties crazy makeup, which includes a lot
(40:18):
of Bronzers. So the popularity of bronzers economic boom times
mean people are taking those glamorous beach getaway packages, which
essentially means that tanning remains a necessity through the next
couple of decades. And by the two thousand, uh British
people in a survey, fifty percent of them said that
(40:38):
getting a tan was the most important reason for going
on vacation. Oh yeah, I mean I remember so well,
just laying out on my parents patio because we didn't
have a pool membership, and just sweating and sweating and
sweating and trying to enjoy it. I remember reading The
Unabridged lamb Is one summer because it was reading for
(40:59):
my English class, Humble Bragg, and just baking myself outside. Yeah, well,
I remember laying when I hit puberty and had some
really bad skin issues. I was encouraged to get some
sun to help the zits go away. Little did I
(41:19):
know that, wow, because we we talked about this in
our acne episode that while yes, the sun can help
fade some of those acne marks, it actually only makes
them kind of come back with a vengeance because the
sun inflames the skin, and any corrective like quote unquote
treatment the sun has for acne is really more effective
(41:40):
on that youthful acne, not so much for the adult
hormonal acne. So jokes on me and my fine lines
and wrinkles and the sun can be such a jerk
sometimes sometimes Um. But speaking of age differences, we have
a lot more information to cover and we want to
dive into some demographics and all of that class issue
(42:03):
stuff that we've been hinting at when we come right
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And now back to the show. So, as we mentioned
(43:09):
at the top of the podcast, the number one tanning demographic,
specifically when we're talking about tanning beds are white girls.
Young white girls. Yeah, that's right. Studies have shown that
white teen girls of a higher socio economic status are
the most likely to tan both indoors and out. And
(43:34):
I'm going to admit I was actually surprised by the
higher socio economic status aspect of that. And and maybe
that's judging of me, and I certainly don't want to
sound like I'm passing judgment, but I I do feel
like I nowadays read in magazines and blogs so much
about protecting your skin and not tanning either. In a
(43:57):
tanning booth or outside, you know, stick to self. Tanner
is if you want to get darker. Um that there
was just like my gut when I read that stat
was like, oh I I didn't realize like there was
such a drive. But then again, this is possibly due
to an age difference thing. Yeah. I mean, rich girls
aren't necessarily smarter about their skin. They can probably afford
(44:21):
a dermatologist and good makeup, but if they are, for instance,
in a sorority, there's a pretty good chance that they
will also tan. I mean, I think it's also like
your you're in group beauty standards, if everyone around you
has a tan, then you're probably gonna get called the
pale girl. And I know that's not a personal experience,
(44:42):
although I'm sure I've been called the pale girl, but
that is my experience. Um, So there's there's probably a
little bit of a pure aspect in there, and it
takes disposable income to chan. I remember when I tanned
my senior year of high school, which I know I'm
going to regret like already with certain freckles that I have. Um,
(45:04):
I've had to pay for it myself. My parents were like, listen,
we're not going to pay for this for you, and
it was pricey. I should have saved my money, Caroline.
But young kids, I know, not to sound like an old,
but they don't know better in terms of feeling invincible.
Oh totally. My mom warned me every single summer because
(45:25):
all I wanted was a tan so that I could look,
you know, to get that social cred that comes with it.
Every single time she would warn me about getting sunburned
and sun damage because in her generation, you would sit
out with the those foil reflective place Sally used baby oil.
(45:45):
Oh yeah, so did nance. Yeah. I can't imagine speaking
as someone who fell asleep face down on the beach
one time and like couldn't wear real clothes for the
rest of the summer because my back was so blistered. Yeah. Like,
I'm going to have to answer for that at some
point because and I mean, like, I don't want to
(46:07):
keep going on and on. But the reason that you
now are seeing more and more states passing regulations against
younger and younger people visiting tanning booths is because that
early sun damage early early like early teens, especially blistering sunburns,
is a super major significant predictor of skin cancer. Not
(46:29):
to mention just all of the wrinkles and sun spots
that you're going to get. And so it's kind of
frightening when you read that two point three million teens
use tanning booths tanning indoors every year and they're probably
vaping while they do it. Kids these days vaping and
the CDC in May found that it's interesting that regionally
(46:53):
they found that the people the women tanning the most
were in the Midwest and the South. I'm not surprised.
From eighteen to and for most of these people, men
and women alike, it was a regular habit. These people
reported going to a tanning bed ten or more times
in the past year, and they're likely supplementing their tanning
bed experience. You know, Kristen, you talked about seeing a
(47:14):
lot more spray tanning places. The things go hand in hand.
People who use self tanners are two and a half
times more likely to use tanning beds and get five
or more sunburns during the summer. So these are clearly
people though, who are hyper focused on changing the color
of their skin. Well, those people could say, listen, I've
(47:36):
got research to back up my tanning habit because it
makes me look more attractive. UM. There was a June
study in the Journal Pediatric Health which found that our
motivations for tanning tend to do with looking better and
young people also cited relaxation, mood enhancement because it does
(47:57):
release those endorphins, and also socializing. There's the peer influence
aspect you want to fit in. Um And it also
cited a study of college students that found that what
their friends thought and the desire to appear attractive had
more to do with it than a desire to look healthy.
And that's no surprise. Yeah, I was praised as a child.
(48:19):
It was it's so sick, but but sally definitely. I remember,
you know, I'd come up from the beach as a
young kid and hop out of the shower and my
mom would be like, oh, sweetie, you are brown as
a berry, and she thought it looks so good on her,
on her pale little child. And I was like, yeah,
I'm hot. I mean I didn't think that, but um.
(48:41):
This other study of college students found that when orientations
toward and that just means like you have a higher
interest in doing or pursuing orientations toward appearance outdoors, social
norms and perceived consensus increased the attitudes towards sunbathing be
aim more positive. And I mean, in case we haven't
(49:03):
hammered this home enough, a two thousand eight Journal of
Health Psychology study found a significant association between tanning bad
behavior and popular peer crowd identification. And you've got the
same basic idea for self tanners, except this time. In
this particular study, it was participants romantic partners support for
a tanned look that positively reinforced self tanning behaviors. I
(49:27):
mean this that does harken back to Jersey Shore Jim
tan laundry. Yeah, but I mean at least they're neat
right there doing their laundry. And the thing is we,
whether we are actively tanning ourselves or not, do perceive
tanned faces as prettier. This was some research reported on
by ABC News. Um there was a study out of
(49:49):
Emory University which used Homeman a real throwback website Hot
or Not, posting pictures of the same person but with
one version tan and one version pale, and the Tanner
version received twice as high of an attractiveness rating compared
to the pale one. Yeah, Dr Audrey Coon and who's
(50:13):
a dermatologist and founder of Derma Doctor, Inc. Told ABC
News that yeah, I mean I hate it, but basically
people think tan folks are more attractive and healthier looking,
and it's super hard to get somebody to stop doing
something that makes them feel better, especially younger people. She says,
younger folks have a hard time seeing themselves as getting
older and having to deal with these risks. I know
(50:36):
I did. I was like, I look great, now, what's
the issue? But then you know, you do look around
and you look for that Uh there's something about Mary
character on the beach and let that be let that
serve as a warning of the ghost of Christmas Tan,
future Tan Christmas sunburned. Well. Yeah. And and Mark Leary,
(50:57):
who's a professor of psychology and neuroscience that duke basically
says that, yeah, the Tan has not lost that chanel
significance even though it's a hundred years old. She says,
we just he says, we just haven't lost it as
a signifier of a leisure class yet. And Autumn Whitfield Madran,
no friend of the podcast writer of the Beheld, focuses
(51:19):
a lot on beauty issues. She says, not only does
it serve as a sign of affluence and health, but
it's also the perfect accessory. She says, it's the sweet
spot between conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption. Yeah. I loved her
description as it being the ultimate expression of oh, this
whole thing, and it's true. Yeah, I mean, and I
(51:43):
totally agree with the Duke professor that it's still a
marker of leisure, class and all of all of those
all those issues I think are still embedded pretty deeply
within it, whether you are getting a tan out in
the sun or are going to get a spray tan.
Because also I think the very seasonality of it supports
(52:07):
the class element. Yeah, because like I have definitely looked
at tan friends before. You know, you come in Monday
and you've got a little bit of color. I've definitely
looked at tan friends before and thought like, oh man,
you had time to go to the pool this weekend,
and you know, for me, like I could probably be
out for five minutes in term beat red, I'm so
freaking pale and shiny. But just the idea of like,
(52:30):
oh god, you had time to like sit down by
a body of water, maybe you read a book, like
I fantasize about us your time, like maybe you had
time to read a book and have a cocktail and
enjoy the sun and some conversation. Maybe a beach ball
was involved or some floaties. That sounds wonderful. But on
the flip side, if someone shows up in the winter time,
(52:53):
and again this is this has been a super white conversation,
and I'd say that this is another white observation. If
someone shows up in the summertime or in the winter,
excuse me, when we're supposed to be all pasty and
she's supertan or he's supertan. Because I have a gentleman
friend who tan's in the winter as well, is usually
perceived a little more trashy than classy. I would argue, like,
(53:17):
what are you trying to prove? Yeah, like, mmmmm, I
don't know about I don't know about that, And I
wish there were more studies like on that whole that
line that we we did. Listeners, like, try to find
some scholarly insight on that whole Tanning spectrum. Classy to
quote unquote trashy because it's very much there, but it
(53:38):
doesn't make a ton of sense. Um. So anyway, scholars listening,
if you if you need to study. There's one. But
going back here line to the very beginning of our
conversation where you mentioned the tan mom, there can be
some mental health issues associated with a tanning obsession, you know,
(53:59):
the person who has to be tan um. That same
pediatric health study we just cited found that thirty of
young people showed a level of tanning dependence similar to
other substance abuse addictions. Yeah, and a Journal of the
American Academy of Dermatology study from found links between excessive
tanning and body dysmorphic disorder and o c D. And
(54:23):
those things make sense to me. I mean, like body
dysmorphic disorder A lot of times that shows up as
obsessions with weight, but you also see that translating into
obsessive plastic surgery, obsessive botox, So it makes sense that
tanning would be linked with that. It's also, according to
a behavioral medicine study, linked with higher appearance orientation and depression.
(54:46):
So appearance orientation meaning just a hyper focus on your appearance.
And it makes sense though that people who are hyper
focused on their appearance are going to do things like
we mentioned that they perceive will make more attractive and
As for the depression link, which mainly they found was
associated with indoor tanning, researchers right that users could be
(55:09):
unknowingly self medicating to feel that relaxation effect, that rush
of endorphins, and so researchers wonder whether depressive symptoms might
inhibit people from wanting to go hang out on a
beach in a bathing suit and instead opt to do
indoor tanning privately get that boost of endorphins. Because conversely,
(55:30):
they found people with better body image were more likely
to go sunbathe outside around a million people rather than
just stay indoor tanning. Yeah, I mean, And further research
has found that while we might be likelier to ignore
those cancer warnings, women are very much vigilant about the
son's aging effects because oh my gosh, you we're talking
(55:54):
about beauty standards. I mean, women who look older are
usually devalued in that way, right, And so I mean,
I think that kind of holds the key in terms
of deep tanning being a trend and how do you
break skin cancer from trending. Unfortunately, a lot of that
(56:14):
doesn't go to like, hey, you might be one of
those statistics who get skin cancer and dies because researchers
have found that that backfires. It seems like kind of
the key perhaps to anti tanning and skin safety campaigns
really lies in like, hey, you're gonna be wrinkly and
(56:36):
then you're not going to be pretty. You're not gonna
be pretty, so watch out where a wide brimmed hat.
And the good thing is hats are very in right now. Um,
but we also have the government stepping in because we
obviously like can't abstain from this very unhealthy habit. So
at this point, twelve states actually banned tanning better use
(56:58):
for people under eighteen, and forty two states regulate tanning
bed use by miners in general. Um, sun lamps now
have to carry black box warnings saying that people under
eighteen shouldn't use them. Although I mean, really any age
shouldn't that be a thing kind of like you know,
warnings on cigarettes. It's exactly well, that's the logic. It's
(57:20):
exactly like the warning on cigarettes, because unless you're what
was it California who just raised the age to twenty
one for buying cigarettes? I think California. Yeah, I think
it's California. But like Georgia, for instance, like fourteen is
the minimum age for using tanning beds, but you have
to be accompanied by a parent. Blows mat frick in mind.
Does that have anything to do with like our like
(57:41):
high number of competitive cheerleading squads. I don't know what
it is. I mean in Georgia, I recently learned you
can also get married at sixteen with parental consent. So
there's just a lot of issues here. Um, but okay.
In the Affordable Care Act included a ten percent tax
on indoor tanning so vises. And I did not I
(58:02):
miss this whole news trend on Maybe it was just
like the more conservative side of the internet. Apparently a
lot of people said, you know what, Obama, that's racist.
That is a racist tax because white people are primarily
the ones who use these indoor tanning beds. And that
(58:22):
ain't flying. Obama, We we got you on this one.
Thanks Obama, Thanks Obama. Yeah. That that sound you heard
when Christen was talking was my brain exploding. Um. Yeah,
there was an Atlantic article, because there's one on everything,
there was one on tanning and the politics of it.
And they did talk to a tanning salon exec who
(58:44):
was just outraged by the federal regulations encroaching on Americans
rote to use tanning beds well also do a Midwestern
accent caroline. It's not just a self I don't know
if I can, can you? Oh no, just psycho um.
But I have a feeling that what will be a
(59:05):
far more powerful force than the f d A to
steer us away from tanning and damaging our skin is
the fashion world. I mean, if Coco Chanel is the
one who brought it in Vogue, then it's probably gonna
take a comparable fashion magnate to get it out of Vogue.
(59:26):
And some would argue that that's already taking place. You
have Verina Van Fetton, who I think was the editor
in chief of Stylite in two thousand eight, way back when,
now saying Tan is the new tacky, comparing them to
ugs hug boots. I mean really honestly, half of the
post was just about her adred of ug boots um.
(59:47):
But also she she doesn't like Tan's, associating them with
more of a Jersey Shore type culture. And then a
little more recently in USA Today said that a copper
tune complexion isn't looking so fresh this summer season. And
I mean even just among anecdotally conversations with my lady friends.
(01:00:09):
It might be partially an issue of Welcome to thirty,
but we are far more into complimenting each other's fair
skin tones, um and slathering on sunscreen and wearing wide
brimmed hats, certainly more than we used to be. Yeah,
I need to be so much better about wearing daily sunscreen.
(01:00:35):
I mean, I'm great about it if I'm going to
the pool, going for a hike, anything like that, you know,
extended out or exposure, But I am so bad about
the day to day sunscreen use. That's just why I
carry a ski mask with me. I just pop that
on any time I got That's the thing with women
in China. That was also mentioned in some of the
articles we read, and that was not so much an
issue of I want to look like a white person,
(01:00:58):
but again related to the issue of the paler skin
is a marker of breeding, high class status. Where's the
darker skin in China still signifies outdoor labor and Caroline,
I think that segues as perfectly into our next episode,
which is going to be a sort of the flip
(01:01:18):
side of all of this and a conversation about colorism.
Because all of these elements we've been talking about in
terms of the socioeconomics, racism, etcetera, that have played a
part in today's conversation UM are sort of a foundation
for what we're going to chat about next time. So listeners, now,
we want to know about your tanning politics, what has
(01:01:40):
resonated with you and is there anyone listening who works
for a spray tan salon who does the spraying, because
I really want to hear from you and know what
it is like to airbrush other people's bodies. Yeah, and
I do. The women at the Atlanta spray tan place
that I went to, you guys were so nice. I've
only heard feedback like that from other girlfriends of mine
(01:02:03):
who have gotten spray tans. They were so nice and
it was a great experience, and let me tell you,
I loved it. I can wear less makeup when I
have color on my face because I am so pale,
so my dark circles just like pop out, my my
acne scars pop out. So when I have a little
(01:02:23):
bit of color, it's like such a breath of fresh air,
fresh tanning juice laden air. So send us ya let us.
Moms house stuff Works dot Com is our email address.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. So I've got a
(01:02:47):
letter here from Becca about our change Makers series that
we ran throughout March to celebrate Women's History Month. She writes,
thank you for the Maker Series, Curly. I'm working to
open my own small business and I love listening to
you keep me sane and connected with the outside world
while I knit so an embroider. The Maker series was
(01:03:10):
so inspiring and gave me the motivation to keep going
even when I get overwhelmed. I quit my job less Paul,
and decided to open my own business. After a friend
and fellow mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She passed
away nine days later, leaving a loving husband, three children
in a huge hole in our community. Regina Wilson's words
(01:03:31):
about her experience after nine eleven as a firefighter and
the precious and finite nature of life touched so close.
I found myself crying in the kitchen after Laura's passing.
I vowed to dream big and go for it. The
podcast really touched me in so many ways, and I
just had to write in so thank you and keep
up the amazing work and on behalf of Laura, I
(01:03:52):
would like to request an episode of any aspect of
cystic fibrosis. It was her dream to find a cure. Well,
thank you so much, Becca, that means so much for
us to hear. And best of luck building your business. Okay.
I have a letter here from Alyssa also about our
Makers series, this one specifically about our episode talking to
(01:04:14):
Abby wombach Uh. She says, I related in a huge
way to some of the things you guys talked about
with Abby in your recent interview with her. I'm a
junior in college and an n C Double A Division
two athlete. I played golf for Lobbit Christian University and
Lobbitt Texas Go Chaps. I've been very blessed with teachers
and coaches who are so encouraging and supportive of female athletes,
(01:04:34):
but I've experienced my share of sexism as well. The
n C Double A does a wonderful job overall of
making rules to make sure that it's athletes don't receive
special treatments simply because they are athletes, but they aren't
as good at making sure we aren't discriminated against. Unfortunately,
my biggest example of the sexism that I have faced
is from the n C Double A itself. In the
(01:04:55):
Heartland Conference within Division two, all of the women's golf
teams in the conference good a big tournament to determine
who goes to the next level. If you're on a
men's team, the top few teams go on to Super Region.
If you're a lady golfer, however, there is a board
who decides what teams move on past conference once the
tournament is over. I've always almost jokingly claimed that I
(01:05:16):
would write a strongly worded letter about the blatant sexism here,
but I never got very motivated about it until I
heard Abby Wombach talk to you guys about her Title
ten project, which she says reminded me of Title nine
and put me on a thought train back to my
frustration with this particular rule. Thank you so much for
reading my super long and kind of ranto email. I
(01:05:37):
appreciate you guys. A ton keep doing what you're doing,
and Alyssa, you keep doing what you're doing. Arhn, I
got you. Gotta love all these women doing such incredible things. Um,
thanks for letting us in on what's happening with your lives,
and you can send us your letters. Mom. Stuff at
how self works dot com is email address and thrillings
(01:05:59):
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how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how stupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Christman
and I'm Caroline. And today on the show it's two
pale white girls talking about tanning. That's right. My whole
life I have been blindingly white. Um My Scottish Irish
(00:28):
heritage would have it no other way. I am so
white that a few years ago, I say a few
it's probably like fifteen or ten years ago, my friend's
mother saw me in a bathing suit and said, Caroline,
you are glowing. And she didn't say this because I
was pregnant. She you know, thank god, she said it
(00:48):
because I was so white and standing in the sun.
Sounds like she really had a way with words. She
really did. Uh. And so I have since then, not
because of that, but just over the course of my life.
Every summer I buy tanning creams. Uh. Not because of
the mom, No, not because of her. That was just
(01:10):
like a part of what I already knew, Kristen, which
is that I'm blinding. When you put me in the sun,
I'm like a mirror. I'm like a reflective surface, just
beaming light back into space. I mean that sounds kind
of cool. Yeah, I'm it's basically my superpower. And so
I have tried out many a tanning cream and I
(01:31):
think I prefer, honestly, like good old Jurgen's, like the
lotion that you used to build up a gradual tan. Listen,
don't lose your superpower, though, Caroline. I mean you could
be blinding street harassers left and right. Someone whistles or
honks that you you just rip off your shirt. Look
at my forearm. So a few weeks ago, I debuted
(01:57):
my spring legs in public for the first time, and
I thought for I debated it all day in my head.
And this is a little embarrassing to admit whether I
should take an Instagram photo or not just to share
with the world, because it was truly astonishing. That's how
(02:17):
I feel every year looking at myself in the mirror.
This is this is truly astonishing. Um, I got my
first spray tan ever last year. Do tell you and
I were on our way to New York to have
our pictures taken in our underwear. Oh my gosh, dont
we sounds so glamorous, scare a lot or creepy, But
(02:39):
this was for dear Kate underwear and I got a
spray tan, but I made sure, because I am so pasty,
not to go very dark. I specifically requested like a
light honey hued spray tan, just to make sure that
I didn't like blend in with the white background of
(03:01):
the photo shoot, just so that I actually stood out,
so we didn't just look like a floating tank top
like floating bangs. Tank top and underpants. Again, it sounds
pretty cool the way you describe this, but yeah, but
but I was conscious of I don't want to look
fake or tacky. I want to look like a nice, honey, huge,
(03:26):
sun tanned, happy, healthy version of myself. And it looked great. Thanks.
But I have a question. It might be t m I.
I've got a question for you about your spray tan experience. Yes,
was it one of those spray tan salons where you
have to get completely naked and the person sprays you
by hand, ma'am? What was that like? And did they
(03:50):
on your rear make you bend over? Oh? No, yes
and no. Um, so I didn't get fully naked or naked,
but I wasn't up to anything, so it's really just
snake it. Um. I stripped down to my underpants and
bloomers and a and a very very nice, very nice
young woman, uh, sprayed me and you know, I have
(04:12):
to stand like I'm in the security check at the
airport and instead of you're not like bending all the
way over. I'm not going to make a bad joke. Um,
I just sort of like pitched forward a little bit
like I was losing my balance and that's the way
that she got up in there and next thing you
knew you were twerking and it just got so awkward.
(04:35):
Yeah it was, Yeah, you forgot where you were, I know,
like I always do. So we have so much to
talk about in this standing episode because listeners, we're not
just going to talk about how you get a tan
and melanoma risks and things like that, because we have
talked about skin cancer and tanning on the podcast before,
(04:57):
but in this episode, we really want to dig into
more of the cultural aspects of it. Why it's popular,
especially for pascy skinned white ladies like myself and and you.
But really, I mean, like I'm I'm in that glove too, uh,
and the class and race issues that also are so
(05:18):
embedded in our whole tanning culture because I mean, forever
and ever, Historically speaking, paleness, almost translucent skin has been
the epitome of beauty, and it hasn't been until the
last about century that we've started seeing this kind of
(05:41):
cycle of no tanning is prettier, No paleness is prettier,
No tanning is prettier. And it seems like that cycle
is speeding up, because, as Kristen and I were talking
about before the podcast, before we came into record, you
have pale beauty, but then in like the nineties and
we were growing up, you also had hypertan Britney Spears,
(06:03):
you had Christina Aguilera who was hypertan. Yeah, I went
to the tanning bed when I in my senior year
of high school, like regularly. Yes, I got real basic
that year. I'm just saying, But now, I mean, it
seems like and I mean, I guess it depends on
(06:24):
and I mean, we'll we'll flush this out a little
bit more in the episode, And it depends on your
social group, what is considered most attractive and normal. It
depends on the magazines and media you consume what's considered
most attractive and beautiful. But I feel like you've got
some people who want to achieve the you know, Jessica
album glow, which is not so much a glover as
(06:47):
it's her literal skin color. And then you've got other
people who look at you know, super translucent high fashion models,
and that's more what they aspire to now, Yeah, be honest.
So Caroline, before we came into the podcast studio, you
are arguing that the Jessica, Alba, Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, who,
(07:08):
by the way, these are all like wildly different skin tones,
but that the more honey huge look, as it would
be described, is the in look. Now. Yes, And as
we talked about it, I think it's like I was saying,
I think it depends on what is normal and beautiful
around you. So for instance, depending on, like I said,
(07:33):
your social group or what your friends look like, that
normalizes whatever the beauty standard is. Um. But also it
looks like it depends on age groups too, as we'll
talk about later in the podcast, because by and large,
the people who are going to tanning beds and are
committed to tanning like once a month at least, tend
(07:56):
to be younger women, and statistically a lot of them
are in sororities, which is really interesting. So this could
be just an issue like achieving color wise of different
age and socioeconomic groups. Yeah, I mean so, and listeners,
I really want you to weigh in on this because
(08:17):
I contended that the popularity of of say Beyonce and
Kim Kardashian has little to do with skin color, and
as it relates to tanning, has little to do with
skin color and more to do with body shape and
how are like beauty ideals in terms of the quote
(08:37):
unquote sexiest female shape has changed, you know, more towards
um those kinds of body shapes. Because I don't think
that any like white sorority girls are going to the
tanning bed so that they can look like Beyonce. And
if they are, I'm a little concerned about them, to
be completely honest. Yeah, yes, do you have people who
(08:59):
have maybe tanning obsessions? Yes, that is the thing people
who get addicted to tanning. Is your average girl who's
in a sorority addicted to tanning so she can look
like Beyonce? Probably not um, But the very fact that
that could be a possibility that white people like us
can get in the tanning bed, get in the sun,
(09:20):
get in the spray tann booth and play around with
our color and achieve social status as a result of
It also speaks to a lot of privilege too that
we're going to get into, because it's not like Beyonce
can get into a spray tan and get like, you know,
a white look. She can't get like the Emma Stone. Yeah, exactly,
(09:40):
And I you know that's that sort of leads us
into the conversation of black women enjoying tanning as well.
It's not like this is just for white sorority girls
to enjoy or to pursue, um, but I mean it
hasn't always been like that for black women either. In general.
Of course, we're speaking in general terms. The embracing of
(10:04):
not only do I have the skin color, but you know,
in the summer, I want to get bronze too. This
isn't just like a white girl thing. And that is
exactly the theme of pretty much any blog post or
article written by like a woman of color about tanning.
Like the headline is usually in all caps, Yes, black
women do tan and we can get tann. I mean
(10:25):
there's even this notion that African Americans aren't even capable
of tanning, which I don't really understand because that, you know,
demonstrates that person doesn't understand how like Melana sites work
and skin pigment and how we react to this to
the sun. Um. But it's not just an issue of possibly,
(10:47):
you know, your skin darkening as a result of being
in the sun, but actually wanting to get that look
at that bronzed glow. Yeah. And I mean, hello, we've
been reading or I've been reading women's magazines forever that
tut tanning real or fake, you know, tanning bed sun
or suncream as a way to hide flaws, concealed cellulite,
(11:12):
make yourself look a little thinner or whatever, or just
like you've been on vacation, which again ties into the
whole like class and leisure thing, which we'll get into. Um.
But yeah, again, this is that is a a driving
force for a lot of people, no matter your ethnicity.
I have a one of my best friends is Korean,
(11:32):
and I realized one of my best friends is Korean.
It's not like that, um, And every summer she just
she loves tanning. She loves to get a bronze look.
And she was telling me about how some of her
friends back home were like, you know, why do you
need to get darker. You're already like beige. You know,
you're fine. And but she loved getting those tand lines
(11:53):
in the summer, getting a little darker, getting a little
color so that you don't look, as she put it,
like sick when you go back from summer vacation. Yeah.
I mean, because of course in Asia it's far likelier
that the beauty ideal is to be as pale as possible.
You'll see you know, women walking around with umbrellas and
big hats on, you know, shading the sun as much
(12:14):
as possible. Um. But I do want to get back
really quickly to black women tanning for a minute, because
this definitely is going to tie into our next podcast,
which is all about colorism. Um. In a having in
post blog about yes black girls also tan, Melissa Henderson
(12:36):
wrote something that jumped out to me. Um. She wrote,
black girl's tan to these girls are not one type
of people. It's just putting colorism in another category, letting
other morals take precedence in one's life. So whether you
choose to instagram your tan or prefer sitting pool side,
tanning is a beautiful thing and that in distance that
(13:02):
yes we we tan. And also, hey, It's totally fine
and not weird at all that we would want a
tan is another theme that you see in a lot
of these blog posts, in particular, like first person pieces
about it. UM. For instance, there was a piece over
at black Girl Long Hair talking about UM. I think
(13:22):
it was a beauty blogger who a few years ago
put up a side by side of her before and
after getting a spray tan and um. It was on
YouTube and half the comments were really supportive, saying, oh,
you know, I was about to do with a spray
tan too, I'm glad to see that it looks good, etcetera, etcetera,
and in the other half being completely dumbfounded as to
(13:47):
why on earth would you want to be darker you
have you look so much better with lighter skin. And
that question though, which the blogger raised in relation to
that of is it's seeding a quote unquote pri blitch it.
We'll talk about more in the next episode that comes
with lighter skin and how like strange that might seem.
(14:07):
But the reasons for for tanning and wanting, you know,
to to play around with maybe fake tanners, spray tans,
things like that are the same reasons that a lot
of us are interested in getting a little bit of
a tan because it often even even out your skin tone.
It can mask uh cellulite and other quote unquote flaws
(14:28):
and blemishes, and also laying out in the sun, as
we'll talk about more. I mean, it just it feels
good physiologically, releases all this happy chemicals. Yeah, for us
to get that vitamin D. So I feel like, which
is not a euphemism, So I feel like it's pretty
racist to assume that uh, black women in particular should
(14:49):
not want a tan and that it would be weird
if they did. Yeah. Well, I mean but there's so
many interesting, uh class discussions to be had when it
to tanning and color, because where is that line? You know,
we we look at someone who has got a nice,
you know, quote unquote natural tan, and we're like, oh,
(15:11):
she looks rested and healthy. Is that what you thought
when you saw my calves a couple of weeks ago? Yes,
I was like, those calves look so healthy. They look
like they've been hibernating all winter, they've been on a vacation.
You can see the patches of really long hair that
I missed in my first shave of the season. Um,
(15:32):
I like to picture a conger hibernation. You're just like
hold up with like some glamor magazines and a laptop,
some like granola. But then clearly we enter a different
arena of class discussion and appropriateness when we get to
people like Snooky, who once told an interviewer that her
(15:55):
ethnicity is tan and someone who like tan mom. Do
you remember this woman who has well, she has legitimate
addiction issues, she legitimately has mental health issues, and she's
gotten a lot of trouble because she took her like
four year old to a tanning salon. And but she
literally was the color of my leather laptop bag that
(16:19):
I carry around And now I was just reading an
update on her. She has moved from being addicted to
tanning to now being obsessed with botox. So like, that's
a whole different issue. But this is something that William
lou who's the author of the book Social Class and
Classism in the Helping Professions, writes about. He talks about
(16:40):
this spectrum of like tanning being okay or not okay,
or signifying class or not. So you've got stereotypes about
people with quote unquote rednecks or farmer's tans, and he's
he writes about how in our minds, in popular imagination,
this equates to white trash people who do man, you
will labor outside. Who aren't, you know, part of the
(17:02):
leisure class, who aren't going to hop on a cruise ship.
And so he asks if a demarketd tan is a
sign of lower class, what does an all body tan represent? Oh?
I mean it means that it's intentional that you were
going out and tanning, assuming I guess you were at
all like a nude beach or you went to a
(17:23):
tanning bed, if it's like an all body tan. Um.
But yeah, I think it is totally different. That absolutely
resonates to Caroline with being raised in the South, because
that whole quote unquote redneck division between classy and trashy
is very much alive and well. And I remember when
(17:45):
I was a kid, my my parents, how does do
yard work pretty much every weekend, which was so fun,
always um and during the summertime, sometimes I would get
the so called farmers tans and I would be harassed
by it because it would mean, oh, Kristen wasn't at
the pool with all the other kids, she was out
(18:07):
picking up sticks and pine cones and mowing the lawn.
Did you did you ever name the pine cones? Did
you keep any of his pets? Only a few? Only
only Stephen, only Stephen and Richard. Um, don't forget Jennifer
the pine coun Jenniferlte. Well, now, I I remember, you know,
(18:29):
friends having usually boys having like a farmer's tand so
to speak, because they'd be wearing T shirts around or whatever.
And to me back then as a kid, that would
just mean like, oh, you haven't been to the pool. Yeah,
you've been. You've been running around doing other things, not playing.
But I mean, in like my little childhood perception, I
(18:52):
was already so classist in the way that I saw
the quote unquote redneckt and I saying quote unquote because
saying redneck does I mean it's such a pejorative. Um.
I don't think it's a very very nice term. Um,
because it is connected to the whole white trash concept,
(19:13):
and it does in my mind, it takes me straight
to counties right outside of where I grew up that
were much more rural and people tended to spend a
lot more time outside, and that super duper tanned to
the point of being read look is I mean a
byproduct of maybe doing you know, labor outside, maybe working
(19:35):
if you're on a farm, but also a look that
the girls will cultivate to. So that totally, and I
think all of that demonstrates what William lou is talking
about when he wrote how quote tanning becomes another venue
for performing and demonstrating social class both I think in
(19:56):
the uh the act of tanning yourself and also how
we interpret other people's hands. Yeah, because someone like Snooky,
for instance, let's just she's easy to pick on and
use it as an example. But like two, someone who
flips through the pages of Vogue, Snooky might look trashy
(20:19):
because of her choice of tanning depth. And I will say,
because I do follow her on Instagram, Caroline, that she
has eased up on a channing well, but she is
clearly performing and displaying her definition. Like we've talked about
at the very very top of the podcast about the
difference between what you want to achieve in terms of
(20:40):
color and why. But she's clearly performing her version of
classy and attractive totally. I mean the same thing with
the dudes on Jersey Shore who would like go and
get there their spray tans. What is it Jim Jim
Tan laundry, Jim Laundry Tan. Oh yeah, I was like
Jim was one of them named Jim. Forget the gym
(21:01):
was just like there had like a tagline. I think
it was GTL Jim Tan Laundry. Oh man. I just
want to think about like random like bookish Jim that
we never saw on Jersey Shore, who didn't fit in
at all, never went to to the channing bed um.
But let's why don't we happen to why this is
(21:23):
even a thing, because, like you said, historically speaking, it's
bizarre that we like collectively would even attempt to darken
our skin because for mist of beauty history, pale was
where it was at. I mean that's a cross cultural
thing too, but I mean we would apply like potions
(21:45):
on our skin to get as porcelain a look as possible. Yeah,
And that was because pale skin was supposedly a mark
of beauty and wealth and refinement, whereas tan skin meant
you were a peasant. You were those monty python characters
the mud toiling away at manual labor. Uh. Not to mention,
dark skin was of course looked down upon because of
(22:08):
the literal racism aspect, the literal hatred and racism against
brown and black bodies. Uh, and women would maintain their
paleness with parasols, large hats, bleaching treatments, and heavy powders,
not to mention lead based creams that dated back to
(22:31):
ancient Greek and Roman times and in the Renaissance. I thought,
this is so funny. European women would draw blue lines
on their faces to make their skin look translucent. That
sounds so hard to do. I mean that, I mean,
I feel like contouring today. It's really challenging to pull off.
But try vain contouring. I know, what do you what
(22:52):
do you even do? I mean, what kind of beauty
blender could achieve that look? I'm just saying, Caroline, And
you know, literature wasn't on the game too. Milky skin
has always been hailed as the height of beauty and purity.
Folks like Shakespeare wrote sonnets praising it, and early topical
sun protectants. When you when you look at the ingredients,
it really takes me back to our Makeup Artist episode, Kristen,
(23:14):
when we talked about the crazy history of pancake makeup
before max Factor came along. You've got things like white
petrolatum or almond oil mixed with a heavy powder made
of things like magnesium, zinc oxide or bismuth. So sounds
really good for the pores. Really slather that on. Sounds
(23:35):
like um. But we start to see though, tanning slowly
becoming a marker of social class and wealth with the
Industrial Revolution, because around eighteen fifty we start transitioning from
the working class being outside to them being inside in
(23:57):
the factories. So understandably you have tan skin beginning to
emerge as a sign of the leisure class. You have
the time to be outside, you can travel. I mean,
if we go to f Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and
the Damned, which was set in nineteen fourteen and fifteen,
his up across characters talk about how to best achieve
(24:21):
a chan Oh yeah, man, his characters and his books
just love the beach, don't they. God West, Egg Tanning,
Leonardo DiCaprio cheersing with Champagne Gift still have never Yeah,
that's all I know from that movie. I still haven't seen.
I think that's kind of all you need to know. Yeah, okay, good,
It's it's a really effective gift in a lot of situations,
and yes, I do say it with a hard g
write me a letter, um. But you know, not everybody
(24:45):
is on board necessarily. Some people are still worried. You've
got a little bit of benevolent sexism going on. In
nineteen o five, Dr Charles Edward Woodriff wrote in his
book The Effects of Tropical Light on White Men, which
is that a prequel to a tropic of cancer? Well? No, literally, yes,
because sunlight is a precursor to melanoma. Oh my gosh,
(25:10):
look what we just was a really extended pun and
I am proud of us. Yeah, we should be. You
should be anyway, So wood Re wrote, the American girl
is a bundle of nerves. She is a victim of
too much light. But he would prove to be in
the minority because what helped bring aside from just you know,
the lower classes moving into the factories, would helped bring
(25:33):
a nice tan, a nice flush into popularity, was you know,
the entire freaking medical community. Yeah. So, in the early
twentieth century, doctors started realizing how sunlight and the vitamin
D that we get from it can be really healthy
for us, particularly to treat tuberculosis and rickets, and ricketts
(25:58):
is one of those old timing diseases. Yes, Caroline, I
did have to google to make sure I understood what
rickets is. Um And essentially it's a bone softening disorder. Yeah,
because you don't get enough of that vitamin D well
vitamin D, but also you're not getting enough nutritious foods,
you're not getting enough calcium um. It would often kids
with rickets would often have horrific problems with their legs
(26:21):
being misshapen. Uh. So you you get this this rush
of the medical community basically prescribing sunshine to people, which
sounds really nice, but people were winning Nobel prizes over it.
In nineteen o three, Nils Finson won the Nobel Prize
in Medicine by treating skin ulcers caused by lupus vulgaris,
(26:42):
which is a condition linked to TV, with heliotherapy. And
that same year in Switzerland we get the first hospital
treating tuberculous as with sun exposure opening and doctors started
to figure out the scientific basis of heliotherapy in the
nineteen twenties when they discover uv lights role in creating
vitamin D and then for another Nobel Prize. We have
(27:06):
Aidolf wind House earning the Nobel Prize in chemistry for
linking vitamin D with Ricketts treatment. And I mean sunlight
was seen as a preventive measure. Two kids were sent
to preventoriums. I love it, I know, I want to go,
which were institutions that provided sit kiddos with good food,
(27:28):
fresh air, and sunlight, like I do want to go
to there. So they basically sent them to summer camp,
but fancier and more relaxing, no color wars, and good
less pressure than having to like swim the lifeline. Um,
let's bring back the preventorium. I'm dude, I'm all for it,
which really just sounds like I need to build a
(27:49):
greenhouse outside of the office and gets sitting it for
a couple of hours in order some pizza. Right, totally
take my lactaid first. In nineteen thirty eight, Herman Bundieson,
who was the president of the Chicago Board of Health,
really emphasized how important sunlight was for children. Uh He said,
no deficiencies that developing children are of greater significance than
(28:09):
those caused by lack of sunlight. I would argue there
are some bigger problems that kids could face, But now
just sunlight Caroline Ah. He continued on. He said, when
it shines on a child, it helps his bones and
teeth to form properly and promotes the quality and circulation
of his blood. The sun bath is just as important
as the water bath, which reminds me of our Betty
(28:32):
Page episode because Betty Page was such a fan of
uh sun baths in the news. Yes, well, and that
does kind of tie into our next fact about how
sunlight starts becoming prescribed as treatments for all kinds of
things including anemia, syphilis, heart disease, cancer which little ironic there,
(28:55):
stomach problems, and also issues with hormones, arthritis, skin, and
vagina's And I'm just wondering what the exact heliotherapy prescription
would be for your vagina. Yeah, you can't use the
phrase where the sun don't shine anymore? Yeah, because it's like,
do you do you try to get sunlight on the
vagina because that would be hard because I think they
(29:17):
mean volva And I just have a lot of questions now.
I Yeah, when you talk about solving gynecological problems with
the sun, what exactly are you referring to just put
you volva under a heat lamp, all your problems will
go away. Uh, but you know, not everybody was on board.
The New England Journal of Medicine in night their editors
(29:39):
reviewed the book Ultra Violet Raise in the Treatment and
Cure of Disease and they dismissed it as really nothing
more than a giant ad for UV lamps and said
that they hoped the quote unquote lady did not get
their hands on it. But any concerns regarding skin cancer
at this time, we're ignored. Any concerns about this stuff
(30:02):
just being a bunch of fancy snake oil, We're ignored.
And all were outweighed by the perceived benefits. Oh yeah,
esteemed medical journal The Lancet declared in nineteen the face
browned by the sun is regarded as an index of health.
And note though, I mean like we can, you can
peel apart so many layers in just in that statement
(30:24):
of the face browned by the sun is good, not
face if you're born with the brown face not so good. Yeah,
the face browned by genetics, that was not They didn't
include that. So therefore you get a tan that means
you're in good health, which means you're beautiful. Yeah. And
speaking of beauty, we gotta get over to fashion and
(30:47):
hop to the lady who, in pretty much any popular
history of tanning that you read, will be cited as
the one responsible for getting us all to the b
each and sun burning ourselves. Accidentally, that's Coco Chanel, of course. Yeah,
she of the tweed and pearls and Nazi sympathizing. True. Yeah,
(31:11):
that's everything you love is problematic. Um. In nineteen twenty nine,
miss Chanelle caught a little bit too much sun while
cruising around the French riviera. As you do, as you do,
you can't help it, and her take on it shrug.
A girl simply has to be tan, and a golden
tan is the index of chic. And we were looking
(31:32):
at a study that analyzed ads and articles in Harper's
Bazar and Vogue, and it was astonishing to see the
upswing just between like nineteen seven and nineteen twenty nine
and the number of tanning related ads and also tanning
related articles. UM. Back in nine three, Vogue advertised its
(31:56):
first tanning lamp, but those kind of ads were really
few and far. But tween until that pivotal moment. In
for instance, that same year, British Vogue declared, pay attention, Carol, Okay,
this is the backless age. There is no single smarter
gesture than to have every low backed costume cut exactly
(32:19):
on the same lines, so that each one makes a
perfect frame for a smooth brown back. M hmm, yeah, well,
I mean swimsuits. Are they talking about clothes or swimsuits?
I don't know. I mean, I think they're just saying, like,
avoid tan lines and and get get a tan you
(32:40):
pasty white jerks. I mean because I asked that because
over the course of the twenties and thirties we have
stats people swimsuits were shrinking. Skin exposure jumped from eight
percent for women for men to a scandalous of the
skin expose. Man, I would it be nice if swimsuits
(33:02):
still just revealed for scent of our skin. So the
same year British Vogue declared the backless age, don't you know,
American Vogue had a four page spread describing clothes, makeup
and accessories to best show off tanned skin. And they said,
from a chic note, sunburn became a trend, then an
(33:26):
established fashion and now the entire feminine world is sunburned conscious. Yeah. Similarly,
in the same year, June Harper's Bizarre had an issue
titled shall We Gild the Lily, which began with the assertion,
there is no doubt about it, if you haven't a
tanned look about you, you aren't part of the rage
(33:47):
of the moment. Well, and who is the audience for
these magazines? Wealthy white women, women who can afford to
change out their fashion, go to the beach or wherever
they might be to have the rage of the moment look.
And it really only increases as people have more disposable income.
(34:09):
I mean, the tanning fat is really inextricably linked with
socio economics. Yeah, but I mean again, the people who
are reading these high fashion magazines, being those fair skinned,
hooper class white ladies, are the ones who shouldn't be
unprotected in the sun. And so at this time, the
(34:30):
same time that we're seeing this backless trend, in this
tanning trend take off, we're also collecting growing evidence in
the medical community that UV radiation leads to tumor growth
in animals. And you get more studies that associate UV
rays with skin cancer in humans, and by the we're
seeing this huge increase in melanoma, which continues to rise
(34:54):
throughout the twentieth century, and non melanoma skin cancer becomes
the most common cancer in the world in the twentieth century.
But that doesn't stop anyone from getting out in the sun. Yeah,
I mean, because who doesn't want to be the rage
of the moment? I mean that weighed against cancer. I mean,
(35:15):
come on, I think that. I think Vogue wins. Obviously
you gotta die of something, right, Oh god, this podcast
just got so bleak. Yeah, totally. So let's go to
France for paid vacation UM. France introduced paid vacations in
the thirties and by the forties this had spread and
(35:35):
you see increased travel, outdoor activities and pop culture that's
even more favorable to tanning and also revealing clothes and swimsuits.
And you probably see this permeating pop culture as well,
whether it's films that take place on the beach and
showmen and women around pools being glamorous in their swimsuits.
(35:56):
UM or of course you know you have your your
fashion magazines are teaching you exactly how you should look
well in NTE. Hello, war fabric rations meant that women
swimwear had to shrink by ten per cent. And this
swimsuit shrinkage opens the door to something you and I
(36:16):
have talked about on the podcast before, Kristen, the eventual
invention of the bikini in nine which this leaves eighty
percent of your skin open to the sun, and so
you've got so much more skin to tan, so many
more outfits to feature all of that non genetic brown skin.
(36:36):
And listen, during World War Two, ladies were busy. Rose
of the riveters didn't necessarily have time to go to
the beach and go get a tan directly from the sun.
So during the war, women would actually rely on tea
bags to stain their skin. And apparently in Britain there
was some marmite ish sounding paste or bullion that they
(36:58):
would use. They would so their legs in that people soup,
people soup, We're just making people soup. They soak their legs,
legs and soil and green and no, it just sounds
like let's fill up the hot tub, throw in some
boolly on cubes and let's all go for a soak. Yeah,
it's horrifying. Again, this podcast got so dark. Yeah, exactly panning.
(37:21):
So in the fifties, though in the in the post
World War two era, we're like, hey, the g I
s are coming home. You probably already have a tan
because you've been outside a lot. But let's let's replicate
that trenched tan. Yes, you have man tan in the fifties,
which is the first commercially available self tanner, I believe
(37:42):
for men, especially designed for men, which especially designed is
in quotes because it's probably the exact same thing is
what was being sold to women, but maybe smelled differently. Um,
and it promised to be moisturizing and long lasting. Yeah,
it just smells like pine trees and cigarettes. It's like
Don Draper's office oppression. Uh. Well, by the nineteen sixties,
(38:04):
you know, we we've we've seen the subtext here is
the rising middle class, the rise of leisure, the rise
of vacations, and so by the nineteen sixties people have
enough money to enjoy color films so you better look good,
and commercial air travel, and by the seventies the world
economy was tanking thanks war. Uh. Sunless tanning really takes
(38:26):
the place of all of those Mediterranean vacations that people
in Europe, specifically we're taking nineteen seventy eight tanning beds
get introduced, and the first one, which I never knew
in the US, opens in Arkansas. Walmart and tanning beds.
Oh Arkansas listeners. Hey, And if you jumped to nine
(38:47):
eight one, you've got about ten new tanning centers opening
in the US each week. By in the US alone,
you have eighteen thous and tanning centers. Oh yeah, that's
a lot of tanning. And typically, like nowadays, you look
around and tanning there they are next to Walmarts. You've
(39:09):
got like a Walmart in a nail place and a
tanning place and a radio shack. Oh the radio shack.
I like my dad, I think there's some still open. Okay,
because Chad goes there. Someone let us know about radio shack. Um. Yeah.
Growing up in a college town, there were tanning salons
(39:31):
everywhere everywhere. But I feel like now Caroline, where we
are in town in Atlanta, were likelier to see more
spray tan outlets than we are tanning bed spots or
places that do both. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just
kind of talking well, I mean, I think I don't
know from what I've observed in kind of bougier neighborhoods
(39:56):
you're likely to see spray tan. Yeah, well, I mean
more class issues that we can dive into. It doesn't
stop people, It don't stop you can't. Sunscreen won't protect
you against the rest of this episode. Yes, because we're
not done in the nineteen eighties. You've got all of
that glamorous, like eighties crazy makeup, which includes a lot
(40:18):
of Bronzers. So the popularity of bronzers economic boom times
mean people are taking those glamorous beach getaway packages, which
essentially means that tanning remains a necessity through the next
couple of decades. And by the two thousand, uh British
people in a survey, fifty percent of them said that
(40:38):
getting a tan was the most important reason for going
on vacation. Oh yeah, I mean I remember so well,
just laying out on my parents patio because we didn't
have a pool membership, and just sweating and sweating and
sweating and trying to enjoy it. I remember reading The
Unabridged lamb Is one summer because it was reading for
(40:59):
my English class, Humble Bragg, and just baking myself outside. Yeah, well,
I remember laying when I hit puberty and had some
really bad skin issues. I was encouraged to get some
sun to help the zits go away. Little did I
(41:19):
know that, wow, because we we talked about this in
our acne episode that while yes, the sun can help
fade some of those acne marks, it actually only makes
them kind of come back with a vengeance because the
sun inflames the skin, and any corrective like quote unquote
treatment the sun has for acne is really more effective
(41:40):
on that youthful acne, not so much for the adult
hormonal acne. So jokes on me and my fine lines
and wrinkles and the sun can be such a jerk
sometimes sometimes Um. But speaking of age differences, we have
a lot more information to cover and we want to
dive into some demographics and all of that class issue
(42:03):
stuff that we've been hinting at when we come right
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And now back to the show. So, as we mentioned
(43:09):
at the top of the podcast, the number one tanning demographic,
specifically when we're talking about tanning beds are white girls.
Young white girls. Yeah, that's right. Studies have shown that
white teen girls of a higher socio economic status are
the most likely to tan both indoors and out. And
(43:34):
I'm going to admit I was actually surprised by the
higher socio economic status aspect of that. And and maybe
that's judging of me, and I certainly don't want to
sound like I'm passing judgment, but I I do feel
like I nowadays read in magazines and blogs so much
about protecting your skin and not tanning either. In a
(43:57):
tanning booth or outside, you know, stick to self. Tanner
is if you want to get darker. Um that there
was just like my gut when I read that stat
was like, oh I I didn't realize like there was
such a drive. But then again, this is possibly due
to an age difference thing. Yeah. I mean, rich girls
aren't necessarily smarter about their skin. They can probably afford
(44:21):
a dermatologist and good makeup, but if they are, for instance,
in a sorority, there's a pretty good chance that they
will also tan. I mean, I think it's also like
your you're in group beauty standards, if everyone around you
has a tan, then you're probably gonna get called the
pale girl. And I know that's not a personal experience,
(44:42):
although I'm sure I've been called the pale girl, but
that is my experience. Um, So there's there's probably a
little bit of a pure aspect in there, and it
takes disposable income to chan. I remember when I tanned
my senior year of high school, which I know I'm
going to regret like already with certain freckles that I have. Um,
(45:04):
I've had to pay for it myself. My parents were like, listen,
we're not going to pay for this for you, and
it was pricey. I should have saved my money, Caroline.
But young kids, I know, not to sound like an old,
but they don't know better in terms of feeling invincible.
Oh totally. My mom warned me every single summer because
(45:25):
all I wanted was a tan so that I could look,
you know, to get that social cred that comes with it.
Every single time she would warn me about getting sunburned
and sun damage because in her generation, you would sit
out with the those foil reflective place Sally used baby oil.
(45:45):
Oh yeah, so did nance. Yeah. I can't imagine speaking
as someone who fell asleep face down on the beach
one time and like couldn't wear real clothes for the
rest of the summer because my back was so blistered. Yeah. Like,
I'm going to have to answer for that at some
point because and I mean, like, I don't want to
(46:07):
keep going on and on. But the reason that you
now are seeing more and more states passing regulations against
younger and younger people visiting tanning booths is because that
early sun damage early early like early teens, especially blistering sunburns,
is a super major significant predictor of skin cancer. Not
(46:29):
to mention just all of the wrinkles and sun spots
that you're going to get. And so it's kind of
frightening when you read that two point three million teens
use tanning booths tanning indoors every year and they're probably
vaping while they do it. Kids these days vaping and
the CDC in May found that it's interesting that regionally
(46:53):
they found that the people the women tanning the most
were in the Midwest and the South. I'm not surprised.
From eighteen to and for most of these people, men
and women alike, it was a regular habit. These people
reported going to a tanning bed ten or more times
in the past year, and they're likely supplementing their tanning
bed experience. You know, Kristen, you talked about seeing a
(47:14):
lot more spray tanning places. The things go hand in hand.
People who use self tanners are two and a half
times more likely to use tanning beds and get five
or more sunburns during the summer. So these are clearly
people though, who are hyper focused on changing the color
of their skin. Well, those people could say, listen, I've
(47:36):
got research to back up my tanning habit because it
makes me look more attractive. UM. There was a June
study in the Journal Pediatric Health which found that our
motivations for tanning tend to do with looking better and
young people also cited relaxation, mood enhancement because it does
(47:57):
release those endorphins, and also socializing. There's the peer influence
aspect you want to fit in. Um And it also
cited a study of college students that found that what
their friends thought and the desire to appear attractive had
more to do with it than a desire to look healthy.
And that's no surprise. Yeah, I was praised as a child.
(48:19):
It was it's so sick, but but sally definitely. I remember,
you know, I'd come up from the beach as a
young kid and hop out of the shower and my
mom would be like, oh, sweetie, you are brown as
a berry, and she thought it looks so good on her,
on her pale little child. And I was like, yeah,
I'm hot. I mean I didn't think that, but um.
(48:41):
This other study of college students found that when orientations
toward and that just means like you have a higher
interest in doing or pursuing orientations toward appearance outdoors, social
norms and perceived consensus increased the attitudes towards sunbathing be
aim more positive. And I mean, in case we haven't
(49:03):
hammered this home enough, a two thousand eight Journal of
Health Psychology study found a significant association between tanning bad
behavior and popular peer crowd identification. And you've got the
same basic idea for self tanners, except this time. In
this particular study, it was participants romantic partners support for
a tanned look that positively reinforced self tanning behaviors. I
(49:27):
mean this that does harken back to Jersey Shore Jim
tan laundry. Yeah, but I mean at least they're neat
right there doing their laundry. And the thing is we,
whether we are actively tanning ourselves or not, do perceive
tanned faces as prettier. This was some research reported on
by ABC News. Um there was a study out of
(49:49):
Emory University which used Homeman a real throwback website Hot
or Not, posting pictures of the same person but with
one version tan and one version pale, and the Tanner
version received twice as high of an attractiveness rating compared
to the pale one. Yeah, Dr Audrey Coon and who's
(50:13):
a dermatologist and founder of Derma Doctor, Inc. Told ABC
News that yeah, I mean I hate it, but basically
people think tan folks are more attractive and healthier looking,
and it's super hard to get somebody to stop doing
something that makes them feel better, especially younger people. She says,
younger folks have a hard time seeing themselves as getting
older and having to deal with these risks. I know
(50:36):
I did. I was like, I look great, now, what's
the issue? But then you know, you do look around
and you look for that Uh there's something about Mary
character on the beach and let that be let that
serve as a warning of the ghost of Christmas Tan,
future Tan Christmas sunburned. Well. Yeah. And and Mark Leary,
(50:57):
who's a professor of psychology and neuroscience that duke basically
says that, yeah, the Tan has not lost that chanel
significance even though it's a hundred years old. She says,
we just he says, we just haven't lost it as
a signifier of a leisure class yet. And Autumn Whitfield Madran,
no friend of the podcast writer of the Beheld, focuses
(51:19):
a lot on beauty issues. She says, not only does
it serve as a sign of affluence and health, but
it's also the perfect accessory. She says, it's the sweet
spot between conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption. Yeah. I loved her
description as it being the ultimate expression of oh, this
whole thing, and it's true. Yeah, I mean, and I
(51:43):
totally agree with the Duke professor that it's still a
marker of leisure, class and all of all of those
all those issues I think are still embedded pretty deeply
within it, whether you are getting a tan out in
the sun or are going to get a spray tan.
Because also I think the very seasonality of it supports
(52:07):
the class element. Yeah, because like I have definitely looked
at tan friends before. You know, you come in Monday
and you've got a little bit of color. I've definitely
looked at tan friends before and thought like, oh man,
you had time to go to the pool this weekend,
and you know, for me, like I could probably be
out for five minutes in term beat red, I'm so
freaking pale and shiny. But just the idea of like,
(52:30):
oh god, you had time to like sit down by
a body of water, maybe you read a book, like
I fantasize about us your time, like maybe you had
time to read a book and have a cocktail and
enjoy the sun and some conversation. Maybe a beach ball
was involved or some floaties. That sounds wonderful. But on
the flip side, if someone shows up in the winter time,
(52:53):
and again this is this has been a super white conversation,
and I'd say that this is another white observation. If
someone shows up in the summertime or in the winter,
excuse me, when we're supposed to be all pasty and
she's supertan or he's supertan. Because I have a gentleman
friend who tan's in the winter as well, is usually
perceived a little more trashy than classy. I would argue, like,
(53:17):
what are you trying to prove? Yeah, like, mmmmm, I
don't know about I don't know about that, And I
wish there were more studies like on that whole that
line that we we did. Listeners, like, try to find
some scholarly insight on that whole Tanning spectrum. Classy to
quote unquote trashy because it's very much there, but it
(53:38):
doesn't make a ton of sense. Um. So anyway, scholars listening,
if you if you need to study. There's one. But
going back here line to the very beginning of our
conversation where you mentioned the tan mom, there can be
some mental health issues associated with a tanning obsession, you know,
(53:59):
the person who has to be tan um. That same
pediatric health study we just cited found that thirty of
young people showed a level of tanning dependence similar to
other substance abuse addictions. Yeah, and a Journal of the
American Academy of Dermatology study from found links between excessive
tanning and body dysmorphic disorder and o c D. And
(54:23):
those things make sense to me. I mean, like body
dysmorphic disorder A lot of times that shows up as
obsessions with weight, but you also see that translating into
obsessive plastic surgery, obsessive botox, So it makes sense that
tanning would be linked with that. It's also, according to
a behavioral medicine study, linked with higher appearance orientation and depression.
(54:46):
So appearance orientation meaning just a hyper focus on your appearance.
And it makes sense though that people who are hyper
focused on their appearance are going to do things like
we mentioned that they perceive will make more attractive and
As for the depression link, which mainly they found was
associated with indoor tanning, researchers right that users could be
(55:09):
unknowingly self medicating to feel that relaxation effect, that rush
of endorphins, and so researchers wonder whether depressive symptoms might
inhibit people from wanting to go hang out on a
beach in a bathing suit and instead opt to do
indoor tanning privately get that boost of endorphins. Because conversely,
(55:30):
they found people with better body image were more likely
to go sunbathe outside around a million people rather than
just stay indoor tanning. Yeah, I mean, And further research
has found that while we might be likelier to ignore
those cancer warnings, women are very much vigilant about the
son's aging effects because oh my gosh, you we're talking
(55:54):
about beauty standards. I mean, women who look older are
usually devalued in that way, right, And so I mean,
I think that kind of holds the key in terms
of deep tanning being a trend and how do you
break skin cancer from trending. Unfortunately, a lot of that
(56:14):
doesn't go to like, hey, you might be one of
those statistics who get skin cancer and dies because researchers
have found that that backfires. It seems like kind of
the key perhaps to anti tanning and skin safety campaigns
really lies in like, hey, you're gonna be wrinkly and
(56:36):
then you're not going to be pretty. You're not gonna
be pretty, so watch out where a wide brimmed hat.
And the good thing is hats are very in right now. Um,
but we also have the government stepping in because we
obviously like can't abstain from this very unhealthy habit. So
at this point, twelve states actually banned tanning better use
(56:58):
for people under eighteen, and forty two states regulate tanning
bed use by miners in general. Um, sun lamps now
have to carry black box warnings saying that people under
eighteen shouldn't use them. Although I mean, really any age
shouldn't that be a thing kind of like you know,
warnings on cigarettes. It's exactly well, that's the logic. It's
(57:20):
exactly like the warning on cigarettes, because unless you're what
was it California who just raised the age to twenty
one for buying cigarettes? I think California. Yeah, I think
it's California. But like Georgia, for instance, like fourteen is
the minimum age for using tanning beds, but you have
to be accompanied by a parent. Blows mat frick in mind.
Does that have anything to do with like our like
(57:41):
high number of competitive cheerleading squads. I don't know what
it is. I mean in Georgia, I recently learned you
can also get married at sixteen with parental consent. So
there's just a lot of issues here. Um, but okay.
In the Affordable Care Act included a ten percent tax
on indoor tanning so vises. And I did not I
(58:02):
miss this whole news trend on Maybe it was just
like the more conservative side of the internet. Apparently a
lot of people said, you know what, Obama, that's racist.
That is a racist tax because white people are primarily
the ones who use these indoor tanning beds. And that
(58:22):
ain't flying. Obama, We we got you on this one.
Thanks Obama, Thanks Obama. Yeah. That that sound you heard
when Christen was talking was my brain exploding. Um. Yeah,
there was an Atlantic article, because there's one on everything,
there was one on tanning and the politics of it.
And they did talk to a tanning salon exec who
(58:44):
was just outraged by the federal regulations encroaching on Americans
rote to use tanning beds well also do a Midwestern
accent caroline. It's not just a self I don't know
if I can, can you? Oh no, just psycho um.
But I have a feeling that what will be a
(59:05):
far more powerful force than the f d A to
steer us away from tanning and damaging our skin is
the fashion world. I mean, if Coco Chanel is the
one who brought it in Vogue, then it's probably gonna
take a comparable fashion magnate to get it out of Vogue.
(59:26):
And some would argue that that's already taking place. You
have Verina Van Fetton, who I think was the editor
in chief of Stylite in two thousand eight, way back when,
now saying Tan is the new tacky, comparing them to
ugs hug boots. I mean really honestly, half of the
post was just about her adred of ug boots um.
(59:47):
But also she she doesn't like Tan's, associating them with
more of a Jersey Shore type culture. And then a
little more recently in USA Today said that a copper
tune complexion isn't looking so fresh this summer season. And
I mean even just among anecdotally conversations with my lady friends.
(01:00:09):
It might be partially an issue of Welcome to thirty,
but we are far more into complimenting each other's fair
skin tones, um and slathering on sunscreen and wearing wide
brimmed hats, certainly more than we used to be. Yeah,
I need to be so much better about wearing daily sunscreen.
(01:00:35):
I mean, I'm great about it if I'm going to
the pool, going for a hike, anything like that, you know,
extended out or exposure, But I am so bad about
the day to day sunscreen use. That's just why I
carry a ski mask with me. I just pop that
on any time I got That's the thing with women
in China. That was also mentioned in some of the
articles we read, and that was not so much an
issue of I want to look like a white person,
(01:00:58):
but again related to the issue of the paler skin
is a marker of breeding, high class status. Where's the
darker skin in China still signifies outdoor labor and Caroline,
I think that segues as perfectly into our next episode,
which is going to be a sort of the flip
(01:01:18):
side of all of this and a conversation about colorism.
Because all of these elements we've been talking about in
terms of the socioeconomics, racism, etcetera, that have played a
part in today's conversation UM are sort of a foundation
for what we're going to chat about next time. So listeners, now,
we want to know about your tanning politics, what has
(01:01:40):
resonated with you and is there anyone listening who works
for a spray tan salon who does the spraying, because
I really want to hear from you and know what
it is like to airbrush other people's bodies. Yeah, and
I do. The women at the Atlanta spray tan place
that I went to, you guys were so nice. I've
only heard feedback like that from other girlfriends of mine
(01:02:03):
who have gotten spray tans. They were so nice and
it was a great experience, and let me tell you,
I loved it. I can wear less makeup when I
have color on my face because I am so pale,
so my dark circles just like pop out, my my
acne scars pop out. So when I have a little
(01:02:23):
bit of color, it's like such a breath of fresh air,
fresh tanning juice laden air. So send us ya let us.
Moms house stuff Works dot Com is our email address.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. So I've got a
(01:02:47):
letter here from Becca about our change Makers series that
we ran throughout March to celebrate Women's History Month. She writes,
thank you for the Maker Series, Curly. I'm working to
open my own small business and I love listening to
you keep me sane and connected with the outside world
while I knit so an embroider. The Maker series was
(01:03:10):
so inspiring and gave me the motivation to keep going
even when I get overwhelmed. I quit my job less Paul,
and decided to open my own business. After a friend
and fellow mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She passed
away nine days later, leaving a loving husband, three children
in a huge hole in our community. Regina Wilson's words
(01:03:31):
about her experience after nine eleven as a firefighter and
the precious and finite nature of life touched so close.
I found myself crying in the kitchen after Laura's passing.
I vowed to dream big and go for it. The
podcast really touched me in so many ways, and I
just had to write in so thank you and keep
up the amazing work and on behalf of Laura, I
(01:03:52):
would like to request an episode of any aspect of
cystic fibrosis. It was her dream to find a cure. Well,
thank you so much, Becca, that means so much for
us to hear. And best of luck building your business. Okay.
I have a letter here from Alyssa also about our
Makers series, this one specifically about our episode talking to
(01:04:14):
Abby wombach Uh. She says, I related in a huge
way to some of the things you guys talked about
with Abby in your recent interview with her. I'm a
junior in college and an n C Double A Division
two athlete. I played golf for Lobbit Christian University and
Lobbitt Texas Go Chaps. I've been very blessed with teachers
and coaches who are so encouraging and supportive of female athletes,
(01:04:34):
but I've experienced my share of sexism as well. The
n C Double A does a wonderful job overall of
making rules to make sure that it's athletes don't receive
special treatments simply because they are athletes, but they aren't
as good at making sure we aren't discriminated against. Unfortunately,
my biggest example of the sexism that I have faced
is from the n C Double A itself. In the
(01:04:55):
Heartland Conference within Division two, all of the women's golf
teams in the conference good a big tournament to determine
who goes to the next level. If you're on a
men's team, the top few teams go on to Super Region.
If you're a lady golfer, however, there is a board
who decides what teams move on past conference once the
tournament is over. I've always almost jokingly claimed that I
(01:05:16):
would write a strongly worded letter about the blatant sexism here,
but I never got very motivated about it until I
heard Abby Wombach talk to you guys about her Title
ten project, which she says reminded me of Title nine
and put me on a thought train back to my
frustration with this particular rule. Thank you so much for
reading my super long and kind of ranto email. I
(01:05:37):
appreciate you guys. A ton keep doing what you're doing,
and Alyssa, you keep doing what you're doing. Arhn, I
got you. Gotta love all these women doing such incredible things. Um,
thanks for letting us in on what's happening with your lives,
and you can send us your letters. Mom. Stuff at
how self works dot com is email address and thrillings
(01:05:59):
to all of our SoC media as well as all
of our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so
you can learn more about the politics of tanning. Head
on over to stuff mom Never told You dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't
how stuff works dot com.
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