The Perfect Tan ...dying For It?

by: Lynn Rosenberg

Who doesn't want to look healthy, sexy, thin? Yes, even thin. At least that's what we were told some five decades ago. We even poured on baby oil to make us tan faster. But dying for the perfect tan was never in the bargain because we didn't know that could happen.

Today most of us know there's danger lurking out there. And what do we do about it? We go to sun tanning salons and roast under sun lamps (which, by the way, are far worse than a day at the beach). We also go to the beach. Oh yes, we use our sunblockmaybe. We might go in the water, but do we reapply sunscreen afterward? Most likely, no.

And, at the same time, interestingly enough, we get our faces lasered, lifted, polished, oxygenized and more which makes us even more sensitive to the damaging rays of the sun, but does that knowledge stop us from excessive sun exposure? Some of us, yes.

But there are so many of us not paying heed. Why?

There are probably as many different reasons as there are people, but incomplete knowledge about how to really protect yourself is a major one.

What came to mind while writing this was my attempts to be a skier decades ago at Sun Valley , Idaho . I was doing some exploring of the west on a Greyhound bus, and thought how fun it would be to get a job in this resort town for the winter. I wasn't thinking about skiing; I was thinking about meeting some terrific men who came there to ski.

It was nearing the fall and all the jobs I could think of were taken. The Greyhound bus would be stopping any minute and I'd get on it and return to Los Angeles .

Within five minutes, I did find work . . . right next door to the coffee shop I was waiting in. I worked at night singing and playing the piano (after 3 weeks of piano lessons) in the bar right next door. I had the day to myself every single day.

After 3 or 4 days, I was going nuts having all this time on my hands and all of a sudden it occurred to me that if I was going to stay here, I should take lessons and learn how to ski! The only problem was that I was not at all athletic, and I was terrified of skiing after the one experience I had had at a local mountain resort skiing over the edge of a hill. I was in a class, but somehow hadn't gotten the concept of how to stop myself.

Well, I decided to take lessons, anyway. And each time before I went up the mountain, I made a bargain with God (and I was not religious) . If you get me down the hill this one time, I will never ski again. Well, this sounds pretty stupid, but I did it nonetheless. And somehow each time I went up I made it back down again.

That's what I think happens with skin cancer. What's a few hours in the sun? It feels so good and I'm young. If and when I ever get it, they'll probably have developed a cure. I'm so young and it's mostly old people who get it. Who cares what happens to me then? A bargain, a rationale, whatever you want to call it.

Protecting yourself is so easy. Use a good sunscreen (one that protects against A and B rays) and reapply it often, wear a UV hat, protective clothing, and stay out of the sun in peak hours. And the money you would use in a tanning salon which will do a lot more damage than a day at the beachsave it for a vacation or something that will enrich your life, not something that could shorten it.

Lynn Rosenberg lost her husband to skin cancer and has made it her mission to educate and inform consumers about sun protection. She has also created a line of UV Umbrellas and Hats. For more information, visit: www.soleilchic.com.


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