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