I have never quite understood tanning salons, tanning beds, spray tans, what have you. I get that it's great to feel bronzed before a formal, a big event, or before heading off to the beach, but what's wrong with doing it the old-fashioned way? Rub on some SPF 15, hit the beach, play a little sand volleyball, lay out for a bit, and voilà! You've earned your tan, and quite a bit of vitamin D to go along with it. Being a surf instructor every summer since high school, I know all there is to know about sun protection, so I find it borderline disturbing that employees in tanning salons boast their products as being the most protective from the harmful UVA/UVB rays, and the only products that can satisfy the "protective" standard cost $100-$200 per bottle!!
I've got some news for the tanning-bed obsessed: nothing can protect you from that artificial light. If a person of average skin tone can lay in one of those beds for 10 mntues or less, and get a burn from it, something's up. In a world where we need things faster, want things to come quicker, at our own convenience, the one thing that we should not sacrifice is our health, inside or out. I've already accepted that I'll most likely get some form of skin cancer when I'm older, thanks to all those burns and subsequent peels from long days at the beach, so why would I want my chances of skin cancer to grow astronomically from 10 minutes of claustrophobia in a tiny, artificially lit burn bed? The funny thing is, employees at tanning salons are always trying to push products on you, claiming that your color will boost, or your skin will be protected, when they know that no matter what you put on your skin, nothing can protect you from those blaring Ultraviolet rays.
Here's a list of some of the offenders, beware!
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