Pale or Tan?

[KittyT]

I hope you have a great time in Peru, take a lot of pictures Do you have a favorite self tanner?

Jergen's Natural Glow. A lot of ladies who have posted in this thread like it. It's very subtle and there's no streaking. I used it quite a bit to get a base color the beginning of the summer before hitting the beach and was very happy with it.

 

[KittyT]

In a good way or bad way?

There is nothing good about the harassment that comes from many Latino men in these places. Such persistence.

 

[pretty faythe]

I'm just naturally tanner in summer months without even trying, a trate that ticks of the rest of my family, who are naturally pale as snow. It's a gene that has skipped them from my mom's grandma Doe, who was 1/2 Potawatomi Indian.

 

[oh THAT girl]

... I'm a redhead. So I'm little Miss Pale. My brother, also pretty fair, says I'm the only person who makes him feel tan!

Personally, I love my paleness and think I'd look terribly odd with a tan!

 

[Fleur de vanité]

I'm fair skinned and I plan on staying that way,not only does the sun ruin your skin and dry it out,but in my opinion dark tanned skin seems dirty.

 

[NoirDame]

I'm very fair. I sometimes cannot find foundation.

I definitely think the sun is very harmful, but I should point out that a tan is not necessarily exclusive to a vintage look. Coco Chanel was the first lady to be seen in public with a tan in the 20s....so there you go.

 

[Lola Getz]

I am so pale I'm practically clear. When I've gotten a tan, it looked good, but it was from baking in the sun (so 80's!) and I have some sun damage because of it. I stopped doing that in my early 20's.

Every self tanner I've ever smelled made me run for the hills. I can't deal with even the slightest odor like that. I just learned to embrace my inner Casper and work the porcelain skin. [huh]

 

[SarahLouise]

I am naturally pale and do not tan at all. I get the porcelain china doll compliment a lot which is nice. However, this wasn't always the case! When I was about 12-13 years old I absolutely hated being pale and tried my hardest to get a tan by baking myself in the garden everyday. Needless to say I didn't tan at all and just went pink. To be honest, I blame the media as all of the silly teenage magazines I used to read gave the general message that being tanned was "healthier" and being pale was looked down upon, so I was naive and took it literally. So for me, I've come to accept being pale and like it but on other people a tan can look nice, as long as they don't overdo it. Fake tan is the safer option as the sun is so damaging. My best friend always has a natural tan and I look like a ghost next to her in pictures! At one of my old jobs all of my female colleagues were obsessed with tans and couldn't understand why I didn't want to be browner. I'm just glad I won't resemble an old leather handbag when I'm older.

 

[rachw182]

Pale

I've always got crap from everyone at school for being ghost white lol. But, why go against nature and risk cancer just to look like Hollywood? I prefer to live my life as myself not someone that everybody else envisions.

 

[=ritzy=]

I love pale skin, i think it is beautiful and looks great on any gal who has the vintage look. But I also love my skin color and would not change it for anything in this world. It makes me who I am, and in a way, stand apart from others. I am naturally tan. I used to hate it when i was a little girl. I felt inferior and ugly compared to all my other light skinned friends..Now I have learned to accept it. I have to admit that There are times when I do feel really dark and hate the way I look, But at the end I realize that my carmel colored skin is beautiful. I dont have to worry much about turning red if im out to long in the sun, and during the summer I have a wonderful Bronzed colored look to my skin. I guess I can honestly say that I do love my piel canela!!

 

[MissMissy]

I guess I can tan really nicely if I want to, I was golden all summer long from swimming pretty much all day every day as a child. Growing up in Minnesota we were always at the cabin on the lake and at home we had a pool. I'm also part Chippewa Indian so I think that helps. As an adult though I really feel it's important to use sunscreen and stay out of the sun between 10am and 4pm as much as possible (especially here in the hot Texas sun) so I pretty much stay pale all year long. I don't mind my pale skin, especially since last year I had several iffy moles removed, they all turned out to be okay but I don't want to take any more chances.

 

[lillielil]

I'm sticking with pale. I have the coloring of a redhead (but without the red hair), so I have fair skin with very pink undertones. I get a lot of freckles across my nose in the summer, which I actually really like.

A few years ago I went tanning for about three months. It wasn't for me. At all. Also, the pale half-moons under my boobs and bum never went away, no matter how carefully I arranged myself. That wasn't a good look!

 

[GreyAndWhiteCat]

I’m one of those that don’t get tan, I just get burnt. So I don’t sun bath, it is terribly boring anyway! I use sunscreen in the summer, but I don’t avoid the sun at all cost. I need some vitamin D, and studies have shown that if you are exposed to a little bit of sun in the summer you are less likely to suffer depression when the daylight disappears in winter. But this of course only applies if you live so far north as Norway But I’m still quite pale even when I get a tiny bit of colour.

What I don't understand is if that for so much of fashion history milky white was the considered to be the ideal beauty, why did it suddenly go out of vogue and it's not considered beautiful anymore...

Supposedly this is connected to the industrial revolution. Before it, only the gentry could afford to stay indoors or have parasols instead of having to work outside, where you would naturally get a tan. So by retain a milky white colour you showed that you didn’t belong to the poor or the working class. When the industrial revolution was complete in Europe at the end of WWI, the working class and the poor had moved in to the factories and offices. So the jetsetters of the 1920s started to sun bath. The tan now showed that you could afford to lounge on the beach and do sports, instead of working. I’m not sure how true this is. I mean construction worker and farmers where still doing there work in the outdoors. And of course, there where plenty of rich and famous people in the forties and fifties who didn’t get a tan.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Supposedly this is connected to the industrial revolution. Before it, only the gentry could afford to stay indoors or have parasols instead of having to work outside, where you would naturally get a tan. So by retain a milky white colour you showed that you didn’t belong to the poor or the working class. When the industrial revolution was complete in Europe at the end of WWI, the working class and the poor had moved in to the factories and offices. So the jetsetters of the 1920s started to sun bath. The tan now showed that you could afford to lounge on the beach and do sports, instead of working. I’m not sure how true this is. I mean construction worker and farmers where still doing there work in the outdoors. And of course, there where plenty of rich and famous people in the forties and fifties who didn’t get a tan.

And it continues to go back and forth, depending on which way middle-class pop culture is blowing. In the post-hippie 70s, the tan was a sign of all-natural crunchy-granola outdoor living -- so much so that people began turning to tanning salons and products to simulate that look when they couldn't achieve it on their own. And then in the '90s the trend turned again -- now you'll often hear someone with a visible tan tut-tutted by healthniks who will chide them about the dangers of melanoma.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to yell at me to "get outside and get some color! You look like a dead mackerel!". And now I see mothers wrapping babies up like little mummies and taping big sunglasses to their heads to keep them out of the sun.

 

[Miss Retro]

I'm pale with freckles and don't really tan just burn so i never try. I like the pale look on me, though i have tried fake tanners in the past and some were nice.

 

[Antje]

I also tried some tanners a few years ago,
yee looked funny, I was turning yellow orange like.
and than I forgot to scrub my knees and they turned out more yellow
no I'm not tanning anymore

 

[Lillemor]

I'm happy with my medium/deep olive complexion because it suits the deep, bright and clear colors I prefer to wear in clothes and make-up but I never liked the fake tan look or a deliberately deep tan after baking in the sun on someone who's naturally pale.

However, I was diagnosed with sun sensitive skin in Spring so I wear spf 50 for my own safety sake and not because I want to adhere to any beauty ideal. I'm prone to hyperpigmentation spots and blotches so I'm just trying to avoid them. I'm still darker during the summer than the rest of the year.

I find the whole idea of one complexion, dictated by a money grabbing beauty industry or historically by status association, as being universally most attractive, very disturbing

LizzieMaine, my dad who's 65 is just beginning to realize that excessive sun tanning isn't good for anyone, not even me. My parents used to set me in the sun without anything on to see how dark I'd get as if it were some kind of sport.

 

[cherry lips]

I definitely think the sun is very harmful, but I should point out that a tan is not necessarily exclusive to a vintage look. Coco Chanel was the first lady to be seen in public with a tan in the 20s....so there you go.

Supposedly this is connected to the industrial revolution. Before it, only the gentry could afford to stay indoors or have parasols instead of having to work outside, where you would naturally get a tan. So by retain a milky white colour you showed that you didn’t belong to the poor or the working class. When the industrial revolution was complete in Europe at the end of WWI, the working class and the poor had moved in to the factories and offices. So the jetsetters of the 1920s started to sun bath. The tan now showed that you could afford to lounge on the beach and do sports, instead of working. I’m not sure how true this is. I mean construction worker and farmers where still doing there work in the outdoors. And of course, there where plenty of rich and famous people in the forties and fifties who didn’t get a tan.

When did sunbathing become truly popular? Was it in the fifities? Who were the sunkissed icons?
I'm an ex-sun goddess. I used to be proud of my peachy-golden tan, and being by the sea makes me happy, but since I fell in love with vintage I worship pale skin. I use the palest Mac foundation, so I'm not a redhead myself, I just admire them from a far...

 

[bettier]

I don't tan well. I burn rather easily. I guess I am more on the pale side, with alot of freckles. If I could find a safe way to lighten them, along with my acne scars, I would be a happy woman.

 

[TheSwingingBee]

I like being pale, skin cancer runs in my family, so I just stay out of the sun. I wear at least SPF 30 everyday and higher if I'm going to be in the sun a lot. Also, I carry parasols in the summer and wear big hats, my bf thinks I'm crazy for this...