It’s dark and I can’t breathe. I’m trapped in a shadowy coffin.
I can’t find the lights. Claustrophobia sets in. I’m trying to find the switch to light the room to start the machine that I’m inside of ….
Suddenly the room is light. I am comfortable, warm and I can’t believe I’m doing this.
This weekend, I visited a tanning salon.
As I absorb the rays, lying there, I can feel it tingle. Is this what it feels like to get burned at the speed of light?
My legs feel hot but comfortable. Even afterwards, my skin feels different ““ it emits heat. I’m not sure how I feel about this.
I have often wondered what our culture’s fascination is with tanning, and, Friday and Saturday nights aside, I’m against indulging in harmful things for your body. Tanning salons are evidence of just one more way we are not happy with our bodies.
Yet I understand the draw. Now that I’ve gone to the tanning salon, my legs look thinner and more even, and I’m not that different a color.
Though some call it relaxing, for me, lying in the booth was far from it. It became stressful.
In my head, questions would arise. Do I need to move? When is it going to be over? Should I press the “face tan” button? Can I just wear bronzing powder on my face to make it match my tan legs? But what if I go in the pool? Can I lift the lid and get out yet?
The tanning salon industry was definitely not created for the claustrophobic.
But the real question is not about claustrophobia; it is about skin damage.
Before going, I had talked with a dermatologist, so I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.
“What’s kind of scary about the whole tanning salon industry is that even with knowing that this is really bad for you … people spend time and money going to the tanning salon in the U.S.,” said Dr. Jenny Kim, an assistant professor of dermatology at UCLA’s School of Medicine.
The sun’s rays are made up of UVA, UVB, and UVC rays. A UVA ray’s long wavelength enables it to go deep into your skin, making it mostly responsible for chronic sun damage, and UVB rays are responsible for sunburn, Kim said.
Tanning salons can be misleading because they use predominantly UVA rays. But just because you don’t get a sunburn after being zapped once in the salon, it doesn’t mean you’re not doing any damage. The sun’s and tanning salons’ rays damage the DNA in our skin.
“If you protect your skin and take care of it, you’re not only not going to get skin cancer, you’re also going to look better as you age,” Kim said.
The American Cancer Society tells us to use SPF 15 or higher sunblock and avoid the harsh sun during the hours between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Your sunscreen should cover both the UVA and UVB spectrum.
Tanning salons are a way to indulge in the “natural” process that happens when the sun pigments the skin, within the comfort of a little booth. But with a million new cases of skin cancer a year, making it the world’s most common cancer, and what looks like a million people using a tanning salon each day, to me, the figures are starting to add up the wrong way.
I was afraid of sunless tanning lotions because I was under the false impression that they “dye” your skin, which has to be bad for you. Turns out, it’s a natural chemical reaction that only affects the outer dead skin layer and has been approved by the FDA as a cosmetic ingredient since the 1970s.
The chemical responsible for this is dihydroxyacetone, derived from plants like sugar beets and sugar cane.
It doesn’t wash off in the shower; it slowly disappears as you exfoliate and also as the natural chemical reaction begins to fade.
To me, that doesn’t sound so bad.
I’ve decided my best option is slathering on sunscreen and turning to dihydroxyacetone when I want a sunny glow.
And though I’m content most of the time with being pale and rosy-cheeked, when I’m feeling a bit pasty, I’m quite content with tanning indoors, using a bottle of sunscreen.
Because, hey, I’m not embarrassed about not damaging my skin.
To trade self-tanning tips, e-mail Rood at drood@media.ucla.edu.