Everybody wants to share a beautiful bronzed, tanned and fit body. Nowadays, going to the gym goes hand in hand with dispatching a golden, healthy tan. But isn’t the tanning concept a little unhealthy from the start? Acquiring a dark tan may cause skin cancer, at least this is the warning you get from dermatologists. However, in the modern society, a white pale skin is a considered to be a fashion flaw and therefore many choose to risk their health over their social position and look. Some look for a long lasting tan that is carefully maintained for the course of the whole year. Other would require it just on a special event, like a weeding or prior to a vacation spent on the sea-side (after all, exposing to the sun rays with a wintry white skin may prove to be a misguided action). For random reasons, the need for a quick tan on special occasions is tremendously increasing and baring in mind the hazards of direct sun rays or using indoor tanning bed lamps, many are looking for safer alternative solutions to this. One of these options would be the usage of tanning spray.
However, it wasn’t like this in the past. For a great period of time, in the history, a white pale skin was a sign of aristocracy, meaning that you were enjoying a good job, not a dangerous, bad paid and outdoor working place. The person responsible for chancing this is, apparently, considered to be Coco Chanel, a famous French fashion designer. Looks like, she accidentally had too much sun exposure during her trip to Cannes on a yacht and turned out with a dark to brown tan. This caused an instant stir among the celebrities of that time. Basically, everyone, from movie stars to politicians wanted to copy her style and pose with a great tan. The rich immediately start nurturing their tan on sunny places, while the poor worked on their tan by lying in the sun rays for hours. The percent of skin cancer appearances was growing in alarming rhythm. It wasn’t until the 70s that suntan lotions appeared along the first tanning beds and spray booths. However, the misguided usage of tanning lamps continued to cause skin cancer and the FDA started looking more into this matter. Their conclusion was that the tanning beds were as hazardous as the natural sun rays, if not more damaging since people were using them on a high intensity for the whole year looking for long lasting and steady results.
Nowadays, we have a new safer option: tanning spay. According to financial newspapers, the spray tanning area is the only one growing in a declining indoor tanning industry. So the question is why is this happening? What is the deal with this that is causing such a curious increase in the usage of tanning sprays?
Let’s see first how they are working. The active ingredient behind is the DHA, which is a colorless sugar used to treat pigmentation disorders for more than 50 years. The DHA acts on the outer layer of the skin, working on the dead cells by turning them to a dark tone. By comparison, both natural sun rays and tanning bed lamps are going much deeper in the skin layers. This is why their effect is more long lasting, while the DHA’s effect is going to disappear in a matter of days, because the dark dead cells are continually replaced by un-tanned new ones. Therefore the effects of spray tanning should be gone within a week. This is why you need to keep on applying the spray products on a weekly basis. The DHA is working within several hours, but because customers want to see immediate effects, most of the indoor tanning sprays will contain a bronzing agent. Its results may and should disappear when exposed to water. Another compound in the nowadays tanning spray is another natural sugar called Erythrulose which keeps the skin color to a not orange look to some degree. Also, moisturizers and natural botanicals are being added in to the equation in order to ensure the skin care process.
The next question is how to do this? There are two options: seek professional aide or do it yourself at home. Speaking about professionals, the best options would be VersaSpa and Mystic Tan, two veritable Coca cola and Pepsi cola of the spray tanning industry. Although many would argue about which is better, both brands would offer the same, in the end. Their tanning machines are covering the customers with a DHA based mist for a couple of minutes. The end result will be a beautiful even tan. Some other names in the industry are offering air-brush spray tanning. This means that one trained person will use a spray gun to direct the tanning solution over the customer. This implies that you can expose only the desired areas of your body.
Still, the danger exists as the FDA approves the usage of DHA but only for external purposes. You need to be careful not to inhale, swallow this tanning mist. Moreover, you need to protect the eyes, lips or any mucus membranes. However, things are not so bad. If you respect the indications given by the trained personnel of the tanning salon, you should be fine.
The same goes for the “do it yourself” tanning sprays. These so called self tanning products can be found on the local drugstore, supermarkets and even online. When looking for such an item, you need to carefully read the labels: makes sure that the DHA is the active compound, make sure the product contains moisturizers and botanicals that will take good care of your skin. Also, the label should warn you about not tasting and not inhaling the solution inside. The advantages of self spraying are that is cheaper, less dangerous and more effective. The only disadvantage is that it might prove to be a little messy. You may want to call in a friend to help you, and you may want to choose carefully where the process will take place in order to make it easier to clean it afterwards.
A few tips on the actual self tanning process:
- You need to clean the skin by taking a shower or a bath. Remember not to apply any lotions afterwards.
- Properly exfoliate in order to remove the dead skin.
- You should shave the areas where you want to apply the tanning spray.
- Moisturize the skin in order to enable faster results.
- Dress accordingly to your tanning needs, leaving out in the open only the areas that would want to be tanned.
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