Why I Won't Tan This Summer

As I walk down the sultry streets of my small town in New York's Hudson Valley this summer, I'm aware that I'm a little different. In fact, I feel a little bit like a rebel of sorts. I feel like I've committed an outrageous act that doesn't fit into the norm here.

What have I done that so goes against the grain of my sleepy little upstate community?

I refuse to tan.

It's a feeling that's been coming on for a while now. For years, I haven't really cared if I developed any summer color at all. Still, I looked into using self tanning creams and experimented with bronzing myself up. I didn't want to be that one pale person who stuck out as different in a crowd of tan women.

But it just wasn't for me. So this summer, I'm going completely tan free. I'm letting my super pale, porcelain skin simply be. I'm wearing shorts, sundresses and summer tops and showing off my pale skin, totally unaffected by hours laying in the summer sun or a chemically-induced faux suntan.

I feel a little odd doing this. It seems that upstate New York, in the country here, people are somewhat behind the times when it comes to embracing the pale skin you were born with. Everywhere I look, from the small town streets, to the local Wal-Mart, you'll see the uniform. Women in tight cutoff jean shorts, high heels slide sandals, highlighted hair, a skimpy tank top, and hide the color of a tanned leather sofa.

I'm not sure if these tans are the result of hours baking in the sun, time spent in a tanning bed, or they come from a bottle. But the effect is never natural, and I wonder why so many women feel the need to lay in the sun or a tanning bed and fry their skin, or apply smelly staining chemicals to their bodies.

What led to my decision to go pale? Allergies, is one reason. Each time I bought a bottle of faux tanner, the citric acid or other chemicals made my skin feel like it was burning. I frequently have eye allergies and the fragrance used to mask the tanning odor would make my eyes tear. I found that the perfume in most self tanners could never really hide the unpleasant odor that would linger for a long while on my skin.

Also, I'm so pale that self tanners never really looked natural on me. They all came out a weird funky orange brown color! I do have a self tanning moisturizer that I've tried occasionally (made by Dove.) It comes in a light shade that does flatter my skin, but I still notice problems with odor and streakiness, which doesn't look natural. I wonder if someday down the road they'll discover that all those stinky chemicals in self tanners are harmful after all. It just doesn't seem healthy to me.

Fear of skin cancer is another reason why I feel I won't tan again. My father has had a number of bouts with skin cancer. Fortunately, they were not of the deadly kind, but with pale eyes and skin like Dad, I'm becoming more vigilant about skin cancer prevention.

Reading some recent stories in women's magazines about skin cancer and its devastating effects was certainly an eye opener for me. There was the tale of a beautiful young woman, a newlywed, who wrote in to Glamour Magazine to share her story about dealing with melanoma, the deadliest kind of skin cancer. Glamour runs a yearly story with photos that illustrate the types of skin cancer, and shares stories of women fighting the disease. This young woman, age twenty-eight, lost her battle with melanoma. She mentioned using tanning beds and not really being mindful of sun exposure.

Young people frequently feel invincible. When you're young, you don't want to think about negative consequences of tanning beds and unprotected sun bathing. But the results can be deadly, for women and men, of any age. Young people and old people get skin cancer. We need to get the word out about this fact!

It makes me angry sometimes, that we receive cultural messages about beauty that are harmful to our well being. We are culturally programmed to be tan. Call it the Barbie doll culture, but however you want to label the syndrome, the effects can be very negative for women who buy into this conditioning.

Growing up, I remember hearing labels applied to pale people like "mayonnaise" or "tuna fish." I've had people comment about me or walk up to me and insist I tan my legs in the summer. These incidents happened when I was younger, but the tan craze still exists today.

There is a feeling that tanning makes you look thinner, more glamorous and successful. Think of all the super tan movie stars that capture our interest. Sun worship is such a part of American culture that it can be really hard for a woman to buck the accepted norm.

But this summer I'm doing it. I'm sporting my natural brown hair and my pale porcelain skin, and embracing the natural, authentic me. I felt different at first, but I'm learning to be really comfortable in my own skin. If you are pale and wanting to simply be yourself, know that you're not alone.

Know that being tan free means never having to deal with painful sunburns again after hours of lying on the beach. It means saving money on expensive self tanning creams and tanning beds. Perhaps most important of all, being tan free means lowering your risk of skin cancer--and that might just save your life.