Via kibblesthepig @ Flickr.
I fucking hate fake tans.
Let me be perfectly clear: I don’t mean a nice, natural weekend-at-the-beach tan. Or even Jergens Glow. I’m talking about those fake-ass orange-y, practically florescent “tans” that you get sprayed on as though you’re a new car on the assembly line. They’re especially eye-popping on the red carpet and on shows like “Dancing with the Stars”, where every single woman (and at least some of the men) has clearly been spray-tanned to within an inch of their lives. A former contestant on that show once complained that the fake-bake had ruined her sheets because the thick layer of skin dye would rub off as she slept. I’m not going to single out any one person here, since I’m snarking on the trend, not the individual. But put “bad fake tan” into Google Images and you’ll find some horrifying snaps of celebs who have had a run-in with the Agent Orange.
Now, if any of you ladies have a year-long membership at your local Mistic Tan, well, you’re free to choose your choice, just like you can choose to wear high heels or pantyhose. But I’m calling bullshit on this trend the way I did on those.
Skin comes in just about every shade from dark brown to pearly white. It does not, however, come in orange. Fake bakes are of a shade not known to nature. So when the fuck did we decide that they were the most glamourous skin tone for white folks? I mean, what’s wrong with just wearing the skin that God(dess) gave you?
My own personal skin has always been pale, although my father’s family are on the very brown end of the Caucasian skin-tone spectrum. (Hell, my dad’s dark olive skin, long nose and almost black eyes mean that he’s routinely profiled at airports. Add a kaffiyeh and the TSA would lock up him up with no questions asked.). My mom’s family, however, is English-German, with freckly-pale complexions that practically glow in the dark. I am somewhere in between–the very light beige of industrial linoleum. I did get the Semitic tendency to brown in the sun, though, so I can get tan if I want to.
Thing is, I don’t want to. I’ve had a few questionable moles removed, so I’m nervous about melanoma, and I’m vain, so I do not want a face like an old leather purse. I’ve given in to the fake-tanning craze a couple times and used those drugstore self-tan lotions, which work quite well on me and give me a nice golden color a little reminiscent of a well-roasted chicken. But after a summer fling with the self-tanner, I threw it out. It was a pain in the ass having to re-apply the lotion constantly and I did not need to add one more task to the never-ending list of grooming obligations our culture imposes on women. These days I wear sunscreen only. I may be slightly tanner in the summer, but it’s probably noticeable only to me. The rest of the time, I’m just my usual pale self, and I’m totally fine with that. And since I’m not all that keen on even realistic fake tans, I’m seriously turned off by what happens when you spray on something that makes you look like a baked carrot.
I’m also turned off by the way these products are marketing almost exclusively to women. There are endless articles in Cosmo, Marie Claire, etc. that advise us to tan up so we can wear a white summer dresses or so that we don’t look pale in a swimsuit. To say nothing of all the ads for self-tanning salons that tell you to get your fake orange glow for summer. It’s just one more way in which women are being told that they simply don’t look good unless they invest a lot of time and money into looking completely different from how nature intended. Fuck that. I live in the Northeast. When warm weather rolls around, my arms and legs are going to look like they’ve been encased in wool for the last four months. I’ll wear the white dress or the swimsuit anyway, and if you think it looks wrong with my pale skin, well, you fashion editors and makeup gurus can kiss my untanned ass.
But for fake-bake haters like me, there’s hope! Earlier this month, the Daily Mail ran an article announcing: Fake Tan is So Over Even Victoria Beckham’s Lightening Up. (With enlightening before and after photos)
Well then. If those classy, classy arbiters of culture, Posh and the Mail, decree it so, it must and shall be so! I confess, I was heartened all the same when the article proclaimed:
Look sharp: there’s a new trend in town and it won’t cost you a penny. Instead it will save you time, effort and whiffy, streaky fingers. That’s right, fake tan is O.V.E.R.
Hoorah! One can only hope that the pasty residents of the Sceptered Isle have gotten the message and are now shutting down their spray-on salons. Now if only the trend will spread to this side of the Atlantic…
Well OF COURSE you’re going to stain your sheets if you don’t dip yourself in lacquer afterwards. Duh.
My cousin used to ride a bike to work, 1/2 hour each way, in Havana. He was roasting.
Later he made a comment to me about my skin, how he thought it was beautiful because I haven’t had any terrible sun exposure.
Yet people love the orange and the tan. Is it because so few people work in agriculture lately>
@rodriguez: The socio-cultural implications of our tanning fetish are really weird, aren’t they? Because people get deeply tanned because they work outdoors in traditionally low-paying jobs–agriculture, fishing, building etc–or because they have enough money to lie on the beach or a tanning bed all day (or get sprayed). And yet we think tanning is “hot” because we associate it with the leisure lifestyle, not the blue-collar one.
@rodriguez and becky: Yeah, that’s why it used to be awesome to be pale–it meant you didn’t work outside.
I seriously need Jane Austen-era trends to come back. I am so white that I glow with a halo of reflection in bright sunshine. I can’t get tan; I only burn. Sigh. At least I’m healthier?
I too only burn and don’t tan, but choose to go out as my pale self anyway. I have had several people at the beach exclaim “OMG you’re so pale!”, like it’s so any of their business. I am happy to choose blinding white over freaky day-glo orange any day, but clearly they are not so comfortable with it.
Do you notice any kind of compulsion among people that you know that tan, fake or otherwise?
My sil has various health issues including vitiligo and moles with “strange” biopsies, and yet insists on getting tan. It seems like something she doesn’t control.
For me, the nail that firmly shuttered fake tanning in the BS coffin was learning that skin lightening products are sold in other countries. The moral of the story is, no matter how you look, there will always be some corporation trying to convince you that you’re flawed and conveniently, they will give you the cure in exchange for money.
The contradictions propping up the notion of tanning are ridiculous- in America, if you’re white, it’s considered beautiful to artificially darken your skin, but if you have a naturally darker complexion, people make all kinds of assumptions about your family, your work ethic, your criminal background, your sex life, and your intelligence. It’s really struck me recently just how bizarre the mainstream nature of tanning is, what with all the people dubbing Michael Jackson a freak, mentally ill, and a self-hating racist for changing the color of his skin.
I hate the orange-glo look too, especially when it’s paired with bleached teeth. bleah.
I’m pink/pale and donn’t tan very easily. I just burn and freckle up. As a result, I’ve never had much interest in tanning and am not self-conscious about my pale skin. I used to get the “OMG you’re so pale!” comments all the time, but like many other annoying things, that stopped once I got older.
“I did not need to add one more task to the never-ending list of grooming obligations our culture imposes on women.”
Yes yes yes! That list keeps growing out of control. Everything that is advertised/recommended by the media requires near-constant maintenance updates. Waxing, brow shaping, pedicures, anti-cellulite cream, hair color…. if you follow all of what’s supposed to make you beautiful, there’d be no time for real life. Where’s the fun in that?
And add this to the long list of a bridemaid’s duties. I’m trying to figure out how to politely decline this “suggestion” for my best friend’s wedding.
So I went to one of those Mystic Tan booths in November? And it was fucking TERRIFYING. I was preparing for a wedding in which I was one of ten bridesmaids and for which the tab was at least half a mil, and it was in Alabama, and I felt like I needed to bring my A Game so as not to look like the poor ungroomed granola Northwesterner that I am. So I paid my 30 bucks and stood on the X in that booth, and I swear to God that spray? And the disembodied voice like a female HAL? And the counting down? And then how when you have to turn around The Voice is counting down again and you can’t see because there’s all this mist floating around in the air and it gets stuck to the outside of your contacts so you can’t find the marks to reposition your feet and you’re totally remembering that episode of Friends where Ross messed up his fake spray tan and you think you’re going to have a bright orange face and pale white back and also you can’t breathe because the fumes are noxious?
Yeah, I fucking HATE spray tanning. I damn near had an anxiety attack just remembering that stupid booth. I went with the lightest color, though, and I will say this: it looked fairly natural and not orange. I’ll stick to tanning through my SPF while hiking or laying by the pool.
@wishingwellred: I suggest you politely tell the bride that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your skin just the way it is. That’s a ridiculous request. I mean, she wouldn’t insist that all her bridesmaids dye their hair the same color, would she?
@Penny: Yikes. Sounds dreadful. How long did the color last?
“That list keeps growing out of control. Everything that is advertised/recommended by the media requires near-constant maintenance updates. Waxing, brow shaping, pedicures, anti-cellulite cream, hair color…. if you follow all of what’s supposed to make you beautiful, there’d be no time for real life. Where’s the fun in that?”
Just the other day, there was a commercial on TV for some prescription eyedrops that supposedly make your eyelashes grow longer and fuller. Brooke Shields was in it. I just thought to myself, “So now I’m supposed to worry about having skimpy lashes, too? Really?”
@BeckySharper: I had it done on Wednesday, and it was still in pretty good shape on Saturday. But definitely gone within a week. Except for the dirty fingernail beds look. That lasted for quite a while.
Honestly, I like the way I look with a tan, but not enough to maintain a fake one year round. And I always wear hardcore sunscreen on my face, so when I do have a tan my face is a totally different color than my body, which presents its own aesthetic problems.
I just generally have an issue with the idea that underlies the whole tanning trend. People automatically assume, like others have mentioned, that I must *want* to tan my pale skin.
This is the way I am and I hope to not have the crazy skin damage or skin cancer when I’m older.
Granted the fake tan is not doing damage to your skin but the whole idea on which it is predicated is revolting.
@Awkward Avenger: There is no body part that Big Fashion or Big Cosmetics doesn’t want you to “fix”. There’s always something wrong/ugly/unfeminine about your appearance that you need to be spending money on. For me the absolute nadir of this was anal bleaching.
@Misscalculate: Completely agree about the whole idea being revolting, and for me, it’s taken to such an extreme–i.e. skin that’s not even skin-colored–that it’s just fucking ridiculous.
I am fond of the classic farmer’s tan look myself. Biking in short sleeves- huzzah!
When I was very young and naive I read a science fiction story about these BEM who came to earth to divide and conquer. Their plan was to start a race war so that the puny humans would do most of the work for them.
As they go about attempting to sow dissent with racist epithets everyone just shrugs them off with a big so what.
The reason for their failure was the then current earth fashion of colorful skin. Enough people had adopted the fashion of coloring their skin in every possible skin tone that derogatory remarks based on color were heard as directed to the color quality rather than the person quality.
It was quite juvenile, I know, but it warmed my teen age heart and gave me hope in the racially charged fifties.
I love the idea still. Orange, will be good when purple and blue and green are fashionable too. Maybe.
My family mostly comes in a lovely shade my mother refers to as “fishbelly.” The bad news is I burn like a mofo and have recently become susceptible to melasmas on my face (SO attractive). The good news is that I am keeping the straw hat and titanium dioxide people in business. I’ve never been in a tanning bed, despite their wild popularity in my HS days, and I’ve never done the spray-thing, either. I’ve tried the bottles of foam, but my clumsiness or inpatience has resulted in poor results. Fishbelly it is.
As a Brazilian woman who lives in Rio, people feel painfully bothered by the fact that I don’t like to tan. I mean: AT ALL. I have an Italian heritage, fair complexion (yet not really a pinkish undertone; I’m more like Tina Fey), brown eyes, brown hair. I’m 26 and when I was 15 I realized my skin looked better when kept away from the sun.
But the argument here is interesting: people think when you’re too pale, you don’t look… HEALTHY. Yes. I don’t even know how to explain to those people it’s an option.
And tell me: Julianne Moore, Evan Rachel Wood (before the goth look), Nicole Kidman (let’s forget about the botox for a while)… do they really look unhealthy? This is just… crazy.
I’ve never used a fake tan of any kind or a spray tan or anything. I embrace my pasty English/Irish heritage, we’re meant to have mottled red and white legs in the summer. Yes, we are, I don’t care.
I’m pale. Very pale. My mum’s Norwegian and my dad’s Scottish.
And I like my paleness. I’m a gothy kind of girl, not to mention a redhead, so it suits me.
I occasionally mention to people that I need to wear sunscreen if we go outside in bright sunlight, and IT IS NOT OPTIONAL because I will burn. Badly. They ask, “Well, why don’t you go tanning, then?”
I DO NOT WANT TO GO TANNING. WHY WOULD I? MY SKIN IS FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS, THANK YOU.
I have no particular desire to have skin the same colour/texture as my dad’s leather couch. Thanks though.
The funny thing is… considering how obsessed with being tanned people are, I am frequently complimented on the whiteness of my skin.