Summer is on its way out, and if you’re like most people, you won’t be spending much time in a bathing suit once it starts to cool down. That means the precious tan you put all those hard hours into attaining is going to slowly disappear with the golden sun of summer. You can either cry about it or you can do something about it. Doing something about it leaves you 2 options. You can either hit the tanning beds harder than Pauly D, or you can get a spray tan. For your health, we recommend spray tans, which have come a long ways from the oompa loompa orange color they used to give you.
Dangers of Tanning Beds and Sun-Tanning
Your skin is damaged by tanning beds just as much as they are by the sun. While you may not spend as much time tanning in a bed as you do out in the sun (we hope!), there is proven research that tanning beds can indeed lead to melanoma and other cancers. On average, tanning beds emit 3 times more UVA radiation than the sunlight you are getting outside. A study performed in 2002 by the National Cancer Institute demonstrated that tanning bed light increased the risk of developing basal cell carcinoma by 50% and doubled the risk of squamous cell carcinoma.
Tanning of any kind is essentially a damaging of the skin; it is brought on by DNA damage from UV light, and that damage has the capability to manifest itself in the form of mutations and cancer. This damage accumulates over your lifetime and, usually, your skin will incur more damage compared to the skin of someone else who has spent less of their life in the sun or a tanning bed.
Aside from cancer, this article on WebMD acknowledges that UV light can also rapidly age your skin, leading to wrinkles, pigmentation, freckles, and dryness.
If any of you reading this have very light skin, you naturally have an increased sensitivity to sun exposure, and both the aging effects and risk of skin cancer are increased.
Spray Tans to the Rescue!
The health benefits of spray tanning are that they allow you to avoid the dangers of exposing yourself to UV light. With a spray, there is no risk of developing skin cancer, and there is no significant skin damage that accelerates aging.
We talked with Artesian Tan about some of the benefits, and they explained, “Tanning sprays contain DHA, which reacts with the top layer of your skin to produce a darker color. DHA has been used in cosmetic products for decades, but it can be harmful when ingested. If you’re going to a spray tanning booth, just make sure you close your eyes, mouth, and ears (use ear plugs).” An even better idea would be to have a professional spray you for a better controlled spray application.
There is no risk of the DHA getting absorbed through your skin, so there are no adverse health effects. The DHA simply reacts with dead skin cells to produce the darker color, and those dead skin cells end up being shed every 5-7 days. So yes, this means that you will have to keep a strict weekly spray tan routine if you want to keep your bronze armor, but hey, if you tan you probably hit the tanning beds way more often than once a week anyways.
Summing It Up!
Spray tanning is a much healthier alternative to natural sun-tanning and tanning beds. The country is finally starting to acknowledge the risks of tanning beds as evidenced by New Jersey’s law of banning minors from tanning beds. This could certainly be an indication that even your own state may follow suit in trying to reduce the incidence of skin cancer. It is currently the most common form of cancer in the United States, and in the past 3 decades, more people have gotten skin cancer than all other cancers combined. So please, do yourself a favor and stick with spray tans. Older you will be happy you did.
