NY Times: Avoid Saying Goodbye to the Summer Tan
By Nick Burns
LIVING in Tacoma, Wash., Donna Villa might be forgiven for seeking a perpetual tan. “I think that I look healthier with color in my skin and when I don’t tan, I almost look sickly,” she said. “If I lived in an area with less rain, I might not be such a fanatic about tanning.”
Ms. Villa, 45, who runs a skin-care clinic in Tacoma, is aware of the risks. While she spends her summer weekends lying by the pool, she makes sure to wear SPF 44 sunscreen. Once summer is over, though, she heads to indoor tanning salons, hoping to keep her tan lines fresh.
A tan, without further exposure to sun or tanning bulbs, can last only about 30 days, said Dr. Thomas Kupper, chairman of dermatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He said it takes about one month for the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, to renew itself by shedding old skin cells and replenishing them with fresh ones.
That has not stopped some companies from marketing products they say can extend the life of your tan, part of the estimated $534 million market in 2006 for sun products, according to Mintel, a market research company that tracks cosmetics.
Some products, like California Tan’s Total Immersion Tan Extender, add copper peptides or tyrosine, which companies say play vital roles in the synthesis of melanin. Dr. Ezra Kest, a cosmetic dermatologist in Los Angeles, is skeptical. “I haven’t seen any clinical research about applying tyrosine or copper topically to extend a tan,” he said, “and I’m not sure that it makes any difference.”
Other products are developed with the idea that keeping skin moisturized and healthy will slow the natural exfoliation process. And many rely on self-tanning additives like dihydroxyacetone (DHA) or erythrulose.
Dr. Kest said exfoliating speeds up the fading process. If moisturizing helps, it’s not for very long. Dr. Kupper says the only safe way to prolong your tan is by using sunless tanners containing DHA. “As far as we know, there are no ill effects with sunless tanning,” he said. “But self tanners don’t make you resistant to sunburn, so remember to wear a broad-spectrum sunscreen.”
(Originally Printed in The New York Times, September 7, 2006) Click for a PDF.