The TanWall Blog

Despite a lot of negative coverage of the tanning industry in the news and all the constraints imposed over the last year such as the tanning tax and the teen tanning bans, tanning remains a fashionable activity among teenagers and young adults.

That’s mainly because popular culture still holds tanned skin as healthy-looking and attractive. If people aren’t in the booths tanning, they are applying tanning sprays and creams to get that bronze skin color.

Many kids and young adults like to tan before Spring Break so they can look good and not have to worry as much about burning during their vacation. Many tanning salons get a surge of business right before Spring Break with students looking to get a base tan before they go on their sunny vacations. These students like to tan and workout for an improved body image and a chance to show off for their peers during the break.

Even during the off seasons, younger adults and teens like to come in for a tan because they like to feel warm and many report that it makes them feel good not only while tanning but in terms of state of mind. Tanners get their doses of Vitamin D and feel happier even during the off days.

Given these ongoing trends, the tanning industry should be doing okay for some time to come.

We’ll assume everyone knows what tan lines are: those dividing lines between darker tanned skin and lighter skin that hasn’t seen the sun.

This, as you know, occurs when materials covering the skin effectively block UV rays while the exposed skin becomes tan after directly being exposed to the rays.

But did you know about the different types of tans that have been distinguished in popular culture?

There’s the farmer tan, which we’ve all heard of. This tan came to be known when farmers would work all day outside and develop dark tans on their arms, face, and neck, while the skin under their clothing would remain untouched.

Another type of tan is called the Franciscan tan. Franciscans are members of certain Catholic religious orders. During the summer, Franciscans would walk around with sandals on, thus developing tans on their feet. So the Franciscan tan was named to describe a tan you can get from wearing sandals all day in the sun.

A trucker’s tan is named after a type of tan that truckers can get, and anyone else driving a vehicle for that matter. Also called a driver’s tan, this tan occurs when someone driving a vehicle has their arm on the window or out the window, and that arm becomes more tan than the other arm. This tan is similar to a farmer’s tan, but the difference is that one of the person’s arms is going to be a bit darker.

In the UK, the trucker’s tan is called the taxi driver’s arm, named after the tans that taxi drivers get after driving all day with their arm out in the sun.

There is also a biker’s tan, where tanning occurs on the top of the arms. If biking gloves are worn, tan lines occur on the hands as well. There are also tan lines on the leg if biking shorts are worn.

Different types of tan lines are found to be attractive by different people. The more irregular the tan lines, the less attractive usually. Also, at present, less people are attracted to highly distinct tan lines, where more people prefer subtle tan lines and even more prefer no lines at all. Of course, this is going to be a matter of preference in the end.

Special fabrics have been developed to allow UV rays through to the skin even, so that people tanning on beaches can tan without tan lines.

Easier still is to hit a tanning salon and tan in private without clothes, though tanners are always cautioned to take it easy the first few times on sensitive sections of skin that haven’t seen the sun.

In many salons, special stickers are sold to induce tan lines to make certain shapes or messages. Some people simply put sun screen on their bodies in shapes or words to induce tan line messages that way. Stars, hearts, messages, and other designer symbols find their way onto tanner’s bodies all the time.

Now you know all about tan lines!

UV rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation and exist on the electromagnetic spectrum with a wavelength slightly shorter than that of visible light.

This form of radiation got its name “Ultraviolet” because of the fact that UV rays have a wavelength just shorter than that of violet, the form of visible light with the shortest wavelength before being undetected by the human eye. Ultraviolet basically means “beyond violet.”

Ultraviolet rays are emitted by the sun and by manmade lamps known as UV lamps or lights.

UV light has a lot of uses in our modern society:

It can tan skin of course. 97-99% of UV rays emitted from the sun are blocked from our ozone layer. But those little rays that do make it through have quite an effect on life on Earth. That’s where we get all our Vitamin D. If any more of those rays got through we’d be fried all the time, and if any less got through we would be Vitamin D deficient. Crazy world!

Insects use UV light to navigate. That’s why they are attracted to those bug zappers people put out to get rid of pests.

Also, UV light in certain wavelengths, as used in a black light, has phosphorescent lighting properties. That’s why certain surfaces glow under blacklights, making them popular at parties!

We’ve developed certain dyes and markers that only show up under UV light, thus opening the door to all sorts of authentication and security applications. Remember that stamp you used to get on your hand at amusement parks? UV light again.

UV light with its phosphorescent lighting properties can detect many substances and particles that are harder to spot with the human eye, thus making UV lights extremely useful in certain laboratory conditions, not to mention crime investigations.

Our society uses UV light for many applications. Next time you are tanning, you can think about how fascinating UV light is!

The sun scare message (so we are all on the right page) is the anti-sun message advocated by certain dermatological and skin care groups. This message characterizes sun rays as highly dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. It describes UV rays as highly carcinogenic and damaging to the skin, putting you at risk for skin cancer and premature aging whenever you come into contact with them.  

These groups will advocate wearing long sleeves, pants, and a hat whenever you go out in the sun, and to lather on sunscreen during the course of the day.

Now, it is true that UV rays in excessive amounts are certainly carcinogenic, just like many other substances and energy sources found on this earth. However, to blow these risks out of proportion and tag UV rays as dangerous in all amounts, and to go against the idea that we are a species that has been living prosperously under the sun for thousands and thousands of years seems to be a bit excessive.

More and more researchers are finding that this excessive scare message is actually showing itself to be more damaging than we previously thought.  

Overzealous avoidance of the sun has led to a new epidemic in our country: Vitamin D deficiency. We have talked about Vitamin D before. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to 16 different types of cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, athloclyrosis, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, depression, and more.

There is one story where a teacher couldn’t get out of bed because she was paralyzed by body aches and depression. It was eventually found that she had a severe Vitamin D deficiency.

Another story is about a couple who were accused of abusing their child, as the child was found to have broken bones, but it was later found that the child had infantile rickets and was Vitamin D deficient.

Stories like these are emerging all over the country. What we are finding is that people are simply not getting enough sun. Vitamin D can be found in certain foods (especially fish) and supplements, but the main source of Vitamin D is sunshine.

The sun scare message has been implicated in this excessive avoidance of the sun, as well as our sedentary lifestyles and the majority of our time spent indoors.

Sunscreen prevents excessive UV damage and sunburn, but it also blocks UV absorption, depriving us of Vitamin D. All in all, we need some unprotected sunlight here and there, and could use a little indoor tanning to keep our Vitamin D levels up during the winter months.

We need to get our Vitamin D levels back to normal. Healthy Vitamin D levels translates to good health overall, so get out there and get your sun!

The weather is gradually growing cooler and the sun’s intensity is diminishing as this summer is coming to a close. Now that more and more people are aware of the importance of Vitamin D, hopefully more people will head to the salon to get their much-needed dosage of Vitamin D. It will be interesting to see how the tanning industry does this winter in the wake of the Tan Tax.

Tanning Salons everywhere have been hurting from the tan tax. Grassroots efforts around the country have pitted local business owners against the unfair legislation passed this June by Congress. Small business owners are complaining that the tax is unfair to the predominantly middle class salon owners, hurting their business and jeopardizing possibly 1000’s of jobs.

Due to the increased concern of getting adequate Vitamin D, and faced with the fact that it is harder to get adequate levels of Vitamin D during the fall and winter seasons, hopefully more and more consumers will frequent tanning salons in the face of the added 10 percent tax. Vitamin D supplements aren’t that expensive either, but it remains to be seen if they are as effective as UV light. We will see if the emerging Vitamin D studies will encourage consumers to opt for indoor tanning to get their dosage of the vitamin.

After all, studies have shown that northern populations that don’t get enough sunlight have Vitamin D deficiencies and increased occurrence of certain cancers. Many people report depression and general sluggishness in the fall and winter seasons as well, suggesting that sunshine could be beneficial in many ways.

Indoor tanning salons are a great way to compensate that lack of sunshine in the fall and winter seasons. Again, it will be interesting to see what people have made of the Vitamin D reports when the fall and winter seasons come around this year, not to mention what the politicians think of their demonization of the tanning industry!