I’m tired of everyone telling me i’d look ‘better’ with a tan… Do you not notice i have red hair!! That means i’m pigmently impaired, and even if i wasn’t, i probably still wouldn’t want to tan. Perhaps maybe it’s why everyone thinks i’m 22, when i’m actually almost 30!! Tanning makes you OLD, why don’t you believe me!!! You’ll realize when you’re 40 and look like a leather raisin, and i still have my girlish charm. HA!
This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2008.
As a fellow pigmently impaired, I feel your pain. Others don’t seem to think that fair skinned individuals would find the description of “pale skin” offensive but I do. Pale=sick in my mind. Enjoy your leather skin, sun lovers. 🙂
Yes! Thank you so much. I’m tired of getting crap from people for being so “pale” and “ghostly” just because my complexion is fair! Skin like this doesn’t tan well anyway, even if I wanted it to.
I don’t tan, I freckle. And I like my ivory skin.
I personally don’t like being pale myself. And I freckle badly in the sun-My existing freckles get darker and more freckles appear where I don’t normally have them. All my life I’ve hated them. But I don’t go tanning, because I don’t want more freckles, early wrinkles, or skin cancer. I attempt to make them less noticable by putting on sunscreen and fake tanning applicants. Sometimes it makes me orange so I put on foundation to neutralize the colour. I sound crazy but that’s how much I hate my freckles. But it could be worse, my skin could be burned by fire and turned leathery– in that case, I’ll take my freckles any day.
I think a tan on a redhead would look weird. Some people definately look better a little pale.
AAA-men! I am not “pigmentally impaired”, but I choose not to go tanning, or lay out in the sun for the sole purpose of getting a tan. Why? Perhaps because I don’t want to look like a worn out leather saddle as I get older. I’m currently 35, and when I tell people this, they actually think I’m lying; one woman I know actually punched me in the arm and refused to believe me until I showed her my driver’s license. I see so many people at work who go to the tanning salon practically every day on their lunch hour, and in all honesty, they look AWFUL. There is a huge difference between having a “healthy glow” and looking like you sat under a broiler, basted in butter, for the past 10 years. I think I’ll skip on the malignant melanoma and extra wrinkles, thanks.A fun fact…in medieval times, having a tan was actually a sign of being poor. Pale, fair skin was associated with the wealthy, since they, as people of leisure, spent their time either indoors or in the shade when outdoors. Servants, peasants, serfs, etc. spent all their time working, from sun up to sunset, outside in the fields; therefore, they were quite tanned. Funny how the stereotype seems to have gone through a complete 180 since then…:)
Lindsay Lohan is a good (bad) example of what happens to redheads that try to tan. She is twenty one, and sweet sassy molassy, does she look like a hard forty.
Yay, way to go! Let’s all stick together and tell those leather skinned, prematurely aged people to leave us alone. I don’t want a tan, either. I like having pale,smooth skin.And Beedge, I know where you’re coming from. I’m forty-two and often am told that I look thirty at the oldest. Most people are pretty shocked to find out my age. I’ll attribute a lot of that to my staying out of the sun and always wearing sunblock since I was young.
hi lady. i agree with you 100%. i’ve worn sunscreen daily, like 24/7 365, rain, shine, winter, fall, spring, summer. ev a ree day, since i was 14, i’m now 30 and still get id’d and love it. i also love the disbelief and double takes. i don’t wanna look old. i don’t want crows feet deeper than the grand canyon. i don’t want skin that’s textured like orange peel, and thick like it too. this whole tan is beautiful thing is nuts. beauty is in the eye of the beholder and way back, perfectly pale skin was the ideal of what beauty is. so really, that just shows you how….ephemeral our ideals of beauty are. i find ladies who have pale ivory skin to be very beautiful. dita von teese, madonna, kelly osbourne, francis bean cobain, that girl on the 185 with the turquoise hair. the tan look will be over soon, i think. now, i don’t wanna seem racist though. it’s not necessarily about colour for me, it’s about texture. the sun gives your skin a ruddy texture, i find. ladies of colour are very beautiful too, black ladies are blessed with tonnes of melanin which protects them from the suns harmful uva rays, somewhat anyway. but when you hear the saying “black don’t crack” it’s essentually true. but stay out of the sun anyway ladies of all races. i mean a bit of sun is good for the vitamin d and all, and it just feels nice sometimes, especially after the long winter. but a few minutes is all you need. plus there’s something about skin cancer.