Being wet helps you tan?

Factual Questions
1

My father told me an interesting “fact” the other day. He said that you tan quicker and faster when you are wet. The only proof that he could give to support this is that people put on tanning lotion to assist thier tan, and the anecdotal evidence that people always get more burned when visiting water parks.

Now I don’t know much about tanning, but common sense would suggest that any medium that you put between yourself and the UV rays would at best do nothing, or more likely delay the tan you seek.

But I don’t know what tanning oil does or the purpose for putting it on, and since I don’t know the science behind tanning I don’t have the facts to fight this piece of what I believe is ignorance. (Not that it would help, he still believes that a ducks quack doesn’t echo… AND NO ONE KNOWS WHY!!!)

Thanks

2

I agree with you, any substance you put on your skin will only absorb UV, not amplify it. And water absorbs UV very well.

My explanation for the anecdotal evidence is that the cooling effect of water allows you to stay in the sun longer, so you are more likely to get a tan (or sunburn). I got my worst sunburn (blisters and all that) while snorkeling - my back was exposed to the sun but since it got splashed periodically by water, I didn’t feel any discomfort at all until it was too late. (Yes I did use sunscreen, or at least made a token attempt to do so but apparently I missed a fairly large spot on my back.)

3

Yep. Did the same thing. The coolness and moisture helps you miss the tightening feeling.
Still, you are going to get some reflection off the water so you should see that reflected fraction of energy beign incident on your body. Even if it ups your dosage by 10% that drops your time in the sun to 90%.

4

If it were true, surfers like me would have really deep tans. However, we do not.

BTW, Tan=skin damage caused by the suns radiation getting to the skin.

5

Water reflection is significant. I’ve gotten nasty burns while fishing.

6

Water tends to give you a cooling effect, as does being near the water. In bright UV, while being cool from breeze and air, you tend to hang in there longer and get a false sense that you are okay since you don’t feel like a dinner roast.

In the water, some reflection does increase the UV bouncing off your body parts above the water, but the water on one’s body doesn’t amount to much of anything othan than some relfection off of you, if anything.