| ▲ | miladyincontrol 15 hours ago |
| Excessive UV exposure in general not a great time, tanning is just a way of speedrunning damage unless done in very short intervals. I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though. Theres nothing wrong with light skin, its only a few western countries that seem to have a weird fetishization with cooking your skin longterm to get darker short term.
Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite. |
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| ▲ | tveita 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| They're both imitations of status symbols "wealthy people can stay inside while poor people work in the sun" vs. "wealthy people can vacation in sunny countries while poor people stay home in the cold" |
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| ▲ | mrits 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US has 200 million white people that live in a mostly warm and sunny climate. Women often tan before vacations or events so they look better in the pictures. | | |
| ▲ | viking123 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I live in Asia and I think tanned white people do not look good at all most of the time, to me it just looks weird. I much prefer the pale look. People with naturally tan skin however I think look very good. | | |
| ▲ | echelon 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's 100% cultural. I think the pale look is super unattractive and ghostly/ghoulish. Tanned skin is beautiful. It's not that it is a sign of wealth due to leisure. People who work outdoors are tanned too. It's the warmness. The glowing. The gradients. Something impressed upon me at a young age that this is the standard of beauty. When I'm in Asia and I see people carrying umbrellas and doing skincare, their skin looks clinical and less appealing to me than those who aren't doing it. I logically know the anti-sun regime is healthier for their skin, but my primate brain tells me it's unattractive. It's unfortunate that increasing melanin production from the sun causes DNA damage. Because it looks so good to me. There are a variety of drugs that induce pigmentation or melanocyte production, but none are FDA approved. Most of them can lead to cancer, either by uncontrolled cell proliferation, impact on unrelated cell populations, or disrupting normal hormonal signalling. Melanotan-II was popular some years back, but there are half a dozen others that use a variety of different mechanisms. None of them are approved. It's unfortunate that we haven't developed something better than exposing ourselves to DNA damage, but it's probably not the biggest priority. | | |
| ▲ | temp0826 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't know if it's every Asian country, but Thailand absolutely has an obsession with skin whitening products (whiter skin is correlated with wealth/higher-class and not having to work outside). I found it hard to find a non-whitening lotion while there actually. I really doubt many of these products are safe and it looks very uncanny-valley and weird to me, which is maybe what you're picking up on as unattractive too. Definitely a cultural thing. | | |
| ▲ | wyclif 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's the same in the Philippines. Try finding soap, lotion, or sunscreen that doesn't include whitening agents, which are usually very unhealthy for the skin. It's very much the case that in the Philippines, lighter skin is viewed as upper class haciendero/mestizo culture (not having to work outdoors, not being a nanny, maid, or "helper"). It's the same in many other Asian cultures. Women who live in Asian countries with a high concentration of plastic surgery "procedures" and treatments (like South Korea, for instance) are often the standards of beauty for other Asian countries even though such procedures/whitening and eye/nose surgeries are out of reach. | |
| ▲ | viking123 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The women look much much younger than western equivalents though because they avoid the sun. It's hard to look at western girls in twenties who look like they are in their mid 30s. However, the western girls who have used sunscreen tend to look super good with the original skin. | | |
| ▲ | temp0826 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the overcooked look either. The damage really adds up quick, I doubt many look ahead to their 40s-50s while torching their 20s away though (something something youth wasted on the young) |
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| ▲ | viking123 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I grew up in Northern Europe and I still think when people back home do tanning it looks so bad and makes them look super old. They look much better with the natural skin as it's not damaged and it's kind of even. Like I see women in their 20s easily looking like 35 no kidding. I am glad I avoided the sun from young age so I get comments now in my 30s that I look like early 20s which is mostly due to the skin. Like sometimes I watch American news and the fake tans are just yucky and kind of gross to me. Same with western women I see in Asia occasionally, age in 20s but looks easily 30+ while it's the opposite with many Asians. Eastern Europeans tend to avoid the sun more. |
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| ▲ | janderson215 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | People also tan before going on sunny vacations to get a “base” and prevent extreme burns. See: flights back to the Midwest from Miami after Spring Break. | | |
| ▲ | qmmmur 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | So deeply unscientific. All tanning is evidence of damage. |
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| ▲ | Forgeties79 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Men (7.4%) and women (11.5%) both do it, but yes women in the US in larger numbers. Worth mentioning it’s still a substantial % of men. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5664932/#:~:text=9.... | | |
| ▲ | mrits 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | What do you think those numbers represent? Just so everyone is clear, it's still 12% when we are talking about females who frequently outdoor tan of all races with half the group over 45 years old in a tiny test group. Not exactly relevant | | |
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| ▲ | kens 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The popularity of tanning is attributed to fashion designer Coco Chanel, who accidentally got too much sun on a Mediterranean cruise in 1923. Since she was a fashion icon, this made the tanned look fashionable. As an aside, the chemistry behind UV damage is interesting. You can think of DNA as a sequence of four letters: C, G, A, and T. If there are two neighboring T's, UV can move a bond, linking the two T's together (i.e. thymine dimerization). If you're in the sun, each skin cell gets 50-100 of these pairs created per second. Enzymes usually fix these errors, but sometimes the errors will cause problems during DNA replication and you can end up with mutations. Enough of the wrong mutations can cause skin cancer. So wear sunscreen! https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/91 |
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| ▲ | brap 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’m naturally pretty pale and don’t get much sunlight, I feel like I look like shit unless I get just a little bit of tan. What most people would consider just a healthy looking “baseline”. It also puts me in a better mood although that may be entirely psychological. When I was younger I used to intentionally tan for short durations, but now I realize that’s harmful so I just embrace the cave gollum look |
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| ▲ | viking123 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I am white as paper, probably one of the palest people and I live in Asia and often get comment that I have the dream skin. While back at home my parents were teasing me about being a ghost and doctors asking am I sick. Interesting how it changes on cultural basis | | |
| ▲ | brap 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think it’s more than just cultural. Yes, it’s definitely a factor, and there are cultures and there were times where paper white was considered beautiful. But I think on some level we naturally associate severe paleness with being sick or non-social. I say this as the original commenter | | |
| ▲ | viking123 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not sure really I am not an expert on this, where I live now and look at some of the wealthy people, they are extremely white like on purpose. Some of the leading politicians too. In fact, it's a bit difficult to find a very dark skinned celebrity or a powerful politician here, there are some but not many at all. To me personally, I like naturally tan skin (like Asian natural skin) > natural white skin > artificial tanned skin > heavy tanning. Tanned white people just do not look good to me. If you asked someone else where I live now, I bet answer would be different To me, something like RFK Junior skin looks disgusting. I always wince when I see a picture of him, like you could make that into leather bag. |
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| ▲ | prmoustache 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why don't you just spend time outside a little bit? | | |
| ▲ | retrac 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Exposing large amounts of skin to the sun has other health risks when it is freezing outside. :) Vitamin D deficiency is very common in Canada particularly during winter. The government recommends that everyone intentionally seek out vitamin D rich foods, or to take a supplement. |
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| ▲ | scotty79 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Just eat/drink a lot of carrots instead. | | | |
| ▲ | api 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The mood is probably part light and part vitamin D. The latter can be supplemented. The former can be reproduced with a full spectrum bright lamp or brief sun exposure in the morning. | | |
| ▲ | yunwal 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I mean sort of but you should probably just get some sun if you can. There’s such a thing as too much tanning, sure, but getting no sun is not healthy either. | | |
| ▲ | nemomarx 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Be sure you're taking care of your skin doing it, though. Get the good European sunscreens and so on, you don't want to age yourself prematurely. |
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| ▲ | hexbin010 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've tried all kinds of Vitamin D/bright bulbs/staring at the sun over the years and they do nothing for my mood |
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| ▲ | thisislife2 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Cosmetic companies to blame? In the east, they fetishize white / fair skin, while in the west they fetishize dark skin. |
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| ▲ | miladyincontrol 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Possibly. Its actually insanely frustrating as someone pale that most western brands rarely approach the level of lightness I need to match my skin, and the few that come close often are almost always rather saturated, highly warm tones. They almost always just stick to tones within the realm of pantone's skin guide, treating it more like a skin bible instead. Haus labs and their triclone in 000 is one of the few foundations I've ever had match. | | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | People with dark skin do also still struggle to find their tones in most western countries unless they live in a huge city. | |
| ▲ | 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | asdfasvea 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, people who do it are to blame. |
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| ▲ | Tha_14 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You can always use Melanotan II instead to get a good tan while also increasing libido and sleep quality; ) |
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| ▲ | fhdkweig 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II says it is banned in the United States, and anything you get on the black market isn't guaranteed to be pure. | | |
| ▲ | 0_____0 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Where does it say it's banned? | | |
| ▲ | fhdkweig 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Second paragraph mentions "regulatory restrictions". Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals intended to offer it as a cosmetic, but abandoned this pursuit in the 2000s due to regulatory restrictions and concerns about the promotion of suntanning. Unlicensed Melanotan II is found on the internet, although health agencies advise against its use due to lack of testing and regulatory approval. | |
| ▲ | IAmGraydon 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s banned for cosmetic use. You can still buy it as a “research chemical”. | | |
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| ▲ | IAmGraydon 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’m pretty sure Melanotan carries the risk of retinal pigmentation, or at least that was the case with the original. Not sure if II is different. | |
| ▲ | echelon 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | BEWARE. Melanotan is dangerous, sadly. Tanning causes melanocyte production in your epidermis. Melanotan causes it throughout your body in an uncontrolled manner. In a wide variety of unrelated tissues. It can lead to uncontrolled melanocyte production that doesn't shut off - cancer. Aggressive melanomas. It disrupts normal hormone signalling which may downstream cause a variety of deleterious health effects and disease states. There are also crazy reports of kidney failure, which may or may not be caused by the drug. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7148395/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23121206/ https://www.actasdermo.org/en-eruptive-dysplastic-nevi-follo... |
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| ▲ | lelanthran 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker > ... > Meanwhile most other countries and peoples are willing to damage their skin in whole other ways trying to get the opposite. The grass has more melanin on the other side. |
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| ▲ | falcor84 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | But that's the thing, it's not about "more melanin", but rather about something like: The grass on the other side has a different amount of melanin be harder-to-achieve and thus more desirable because it previously signaled belonging to the higher socio-economical strata. | | |
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| ▲ | the__alchemist 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's indeed, baffling, ignoring health consequences: Get fashionably darker skin now: Make your skin look (reasonably universally) irreversibly uglier/older gradually over time. This is perhaps the most controllable way to affect how old you look. It becomes unmissable once someone is in their 30s: Some still have youthful skin, while others are wrinkly, splotched, and saggy. |
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| ▲ | viking123 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I often see women in their mid 20s looking like 35 simply because of the skin. |
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| ▲ | victor106 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I'll never understand some people's fetishization with getting darker via tanning though While some darker skin people want to have lighter skin. Maybe at some deeper level it’s something about being human. We always want something the other person has |
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| ▲ | Bridged7756 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm pretty sure it's just cultural. They don't want to be fairer, or darker, they want the social status that it, allegedly, signals. | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > We always want something the other person has This. Same with curly vs straight hair. |
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| ▲ | fennecbutt 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And what's funny is Western countries idolise tanned skin whereas Asian countries tend to idolise lighter skin. |
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| ▲ | mixmastamyk 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The book by Dr. Seuss, “The Star Bellied Sneetches” explorers the phenomenon. |
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| ▲ | 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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