to TAn or nOT

You were probably a freckly kid, weren't you, Algis? Be careful out there.

I get red as a lobster if i spend too long sitting in a dark room and contemplating the sun. When eBeth and i spent a week with Marley in Maine, i was burnt red within about 15 minutes. Remarks like "fish belly" and "beached whale" leave me serenely undisturbed--i'd rather be ridiculed than red.

I am stupid in this area. I love the 'healthy' look of a tan. Yet, I know no tan is healthy.

I eshewed tanning for a few years, and then started again.

I use SPF 30, but if I'm getting a tan--it's bad for me.

I am currently tanned and checking out my freckles and moles on a daily basis. Goofy.

If i could get Setanta to wear a hat outside in the summer, I'd be a happier gal. He deep-fries rather than tans. You can almost hear the sizzle. Even with the white linen shirt I got him, he fried. <<sigh>>

Setanta, I'm afraid you're not alone. Six months at a tanning salon, and I was still white, only with more freckles. Great...just great.

We're going to the Bahamas next week...my skinny, dark complexioned husband and son, and...me, the great white whale. (Well, that's what I feel like.) I will be putting on my 45 sunblock before the airplane lands.

Heard a comedian once say that putting an Irish person on a beach is a lot like putting a fork in a microwave. There's a lot of sparks, and a lot of pain....

But still, I cannot resist the islands.

Me too, the irish person. I have a healthy girlfriend, one of the smartassgroup, who, with her husband, runs around outdoors most of the time.
She never ever wore sunscreen, hats, etc...and now is verrrrry wrinkly. Teaches soccer, climbs mountains, looks a hundred. Exaggerating, of course, but never mind cancer, it really changes your skin.

I was a freckly youth indeed eh Beth.Actually it's such an addictive process for little in return. Certainly my eyes seem bluer and my smile whiter.But you've been a convincing team of A2K mates...
I was wondering if you went to a tanning salon alittle and activated your skin via the safe wavelength, then you might have natural protection without all that sunscreen on you.

Anyone coming to the Montreal Comedy festival this week?

I definitely worry about this since I burned too much on spring break trips to my grandma's in Florida from when I was a little kid, and try to be more careful now but am not careful enough. I tend to think that if a mole/freckle gets weird, whack it, and I keep a close eye on things. My grandmother had many of them whacked and died of something else, at an advanced age. And she was the fair-skinned redhead. (My dad's and my coloring comes from his dad, her husband.)

But a close friend of ours, under 40, just died from skin cancer, leaving a wife and two young children. We hadn't been in touch with him in a while, after knowing him and his family well when we all lived in Madison, and it's pretty shocking. I really need to be more careful, olive-tone notwithstanding. (Takes a lot for me to burn, like going from the depth of a Minnesota winter into 10 hours a day of Florida sun. WHAT was my dad thinking to let me go sunscreen-less? Sigh.)

Having a tan does not protect you from getting cancer.

The UV radiation will still damage your skin's DNA and elasticity,
whether or not you have a tan.
It just won't do as much burn damage, that's all.

A tanning salon might be safer way to get a tan, but be sure
to still use sunscreen for actual protection.

All things in moderation...

I guess I am surprised if anyone reading this thinks a tan will protect against skin cancer.

At least twenty years ago, I had a md in Marina del Rey be very stern to me about a particular thingy, and something about him was, ah, icky, and I went to another dermatologist, who excised it, and declared it something else, in the pre-range, based on lab tests. I have had a bunch of those, with relatively little ramifications - given the possible amount of sun exposure to pale freckled skin - lifetime exposure. Whatever, watch your asses, everybody.

I think it might be almost as bad to count on having olive or darker skin...but maybe that is a pass. I don't know the statistics, and would like to, for my niece (plus the rest of the world).

I am soooooooooooo lucky to have natrually brown skin !! A permanent tanned look !!!

you are G. Love Indian skin you know.

Gautam, your skin colour is not going to protect you. Sunburns and skin cancer are still a possibility.

Tanning salons are no safer than direct exposure to the sun. There are tons of studies out there on this.

Toss yourself into one of those booths where they spray colour on you, if you really 'need' that tanned look. Funny how we think it's healthy looking now, when it used to be so despised.

I know that when I look at some women my age, with their wrinkly, crinkly skin from smoking and sun, I wonder if the few months of looking 'healthy' were worth it. They look old now, and they shouldn't.

Betheh - sorry to hear that about Rosario! So sad.

I think Gautam meant that he looks tan without having to actually tan. (i.e., him with no sun is more "tan" than Mr. Alabaster with plenty of sun.)

I work with a number of people who refer to themselves as 'brown'. I've been listening to a number of them discuss the pros and cons of tanning over the past couple of weeks - the pro is becoming browner, and looking better for Caribana, the con being the dangers of burning/skin damage/cancer. It's the same argument everywhere it seems.

I still can't believe how, after so much talk about skin cancer (and someone as prominent as Maureen Reagan dying of it) that folks would still try to become tanned. If you get exposed by accident, hey, that happens (although you should put on sunscreen every day, even during the winter!), but deliberately setting yourself up for exposure is just silly.

Yeah! Jespah said it.

littlek, thanks about Rosario. You know I love that guy. a classic 80 years + Sicilian bull, stubborn and funny. He sits on the porch and reads poetry and talks about the good old days of being in the Sicilian navy and the wonderful caps the 'mariners' wore.

Oh no I'm going to become crinkly and disfigued ? The shame I will have to bear...Is not this punishment enough? Oh! why did I ever start this post ???
Oh my GoD I need post tanning therapy to get me ready for my future delemma.