I tan pretty easily, I just don’t have the time to do it properly. I’ve been keeping my face protected from the sun for a couple of years, so when I do tan, it looks odd.
I tried using a tanning bed a few years ago, and ended up with a nice color for a few months and extra lines around my eyes that I still have. I don’t like the idea of roasting myself in the sun.
Sunless tanning stuff is nice every now and then, but I always miss spots and it stinks.
So… for now, I’m going to try to remember to slather myself in sunblock before stepping outside. But as soon as I start loosing the battle against wrinkles, I’ll be one of those older women with skin the texture AND color of leather.
Word. In addition to the extra lines, I also have some darkened spots on my upper torso that I expect will need to be removed in a few years. The tanning bed was one of my stupider decisions.
I don’t mind being white so much as being transparent. At least the blue veins and dark spots of hair roots distract the casual onlooker from the blinding whiteness of my legs.
Eeek, tanning bed = evil. But, we must remember that the proper descriptions for such fair skin is not ‘pasty white’ or ‘blindingly ghastly.’ No, no, it’s porcelain! And alabaster! Yes! Skin like a goddess!
[sub]Least that’s what I tell myself.[/sub]
I never tan… just burn and peel. I accepted that all I can do is
live with the flourescence 
Good luck!
Hey, in defence of you all, I find pale skin -very- attractive. I don’t understand people who feel the need to tan. I’ll just sit over here being appreciative of you.
With your Doper name that’s probably a safe choice. 
Since I burn very easily now, I’ve decided to stay inside as summer approaches and embrace the cool side of the pillow in the shade.
My best friend and I discovered while we were in high school that we don’t tan we bleach.
Yeah, fair skin and freckles!
When I do go out I am among the burn and then nothing to show for it later.
There was one year that I got a great tan but I think it had something to do with hormones since I was pregnant with my youngest son and spent all summer swimming and have not tanned as well since.
Also when I go out in the sun my freckles tend to come out in droves. I did come up with an idea to try to get them all to merge into one giant freckle and therefore I would have the look of a tan without the sun and burn factor. I’m not thinking that is going to work so well though.
Ah man! Can I just sit here and watch y’all try to tan? I’ll bring tanning lotion and the like!
I’ve faced great opposition from friends and family regarding my decision not to tan. When they ask me why I prefer being white and pasty (oops, sorry Searching For Truth – porcelain and alabaster) I explain that I don’t want melanoma or to look sixty when I’m thirty.
“But you’re so pale!” some protest, while others insist tanning beds are “perfectly safe”. I’m not buying it, and that’s why I’m stocking up on the sun lotion. 
.:Nichol:.
I hate that Visible Woman™ look; who really wants to trace their circulatory system? But I’ve gotten used to it over the years as I apparently have little melanin- don’t tan at all, just charbroil. At least I’ve become less photosensitive than I was as a child. Then I used to break out in red blotches after being in the sun. I only hope that all this means I won’t wrinkle as badly as I age, but somehow I kinda doubt it.
Stick to the shade, it pays off.
I am an extremely fair-skinned brunette – the type where you can make out blue tracery of veins on my arms & breasts, if you want to look that close. My sister is an olive-skinned ‘dirty blond.’ (No, no milkman involved, just randomly shuffled genes from a mixed European background.)
Louise tans easily. I simply can’t. So Louise has been a sun worshipper all her life, hours and hours spent lying on beaches and so forth. I’ve spent mine hiding indoors & wearing huge hats when I had to venture out.
And now that we’ve both passed thirty, the bills are coming due. Louise has already had to have a couple of ‘precancerous lesions’ removed from her face, and overall her skin is rough textured and blotchy and she has visible lines, despite doing her best with all the skin products and makeup known to womankind. I have no wrinkles, not even laugh lines, and my skin care/beauty routine consists of Ivory soap, mascara and lip gloss.
I don’t live for tanning. My arms tan fine from uv rays through the windows. But I don’t really care for having blindingly white legs when I wear shorts.
I’m so fair, and burn so quickly, I have a sheer white shirt that I wear IN THE POOL. Yes, I wear a long-sleeved shirt over my swimsuit, just so I can swim (with sunscreen) for over 1/2 hour without frying to a crisp.
Tell me again why exactly I live in Arizona??
StarvingButStrong, my sister and I are EXACTLY like you and yours. How peculiar.
ArrrMatey, people like you make my world go 'round.
I, too, used to wear shirts when swimming. Still try to be careful when out in the sun for long. However, my giddy youthfulness often mistakenly and foolishly assures me that such precautions are not necessary. Then I’m nice and pink and hot to the touch for a week or so, and I’m smarter for the rest of the summer.
I’m extremely pale, you can see my veins on my hands (and other various parts ;)) and when it gets cold indoors, I get this red-pink spiderwebby pattern on my skin (it freaks people out!).
I’ve become more photosensitive over the years. Now I can’t slather on SPF 50 and walk around the block (about 1 mile, we have long blocks) without getting a mild burn. I also get these weird bright red tiny spots on places except my hands and face (which get more continual exposure year round). They aren’t freckles, and I found out they’re capillaries rising to the surface of my skin. :eek: I have no idea why this happens and I can’t afford to visit a derm, so I guess I’ll have to hide indoors more.
When I was a kid I’d acquire a great tan just by being a kid and running around in the sun. (I think the highest numbered sunblock my mom ever bought then was about 8, and then she only put it on me when I was swimming.)
Now, though, while I can tan, I have to be very very careful about it, because I burn very easily. I don’t TRY to tan, but having a little bit isn’t terrible, is it?
Right now, though, my legs are whiter than white. Even whiter than Mom’s, and hers are pretty pale as well! If I only had pale hair as well and could get away without shaving so often…sigh
At which point will you change your user name to naugahyde queen? (IAC, if your husband ever decides he doesn’t like the look of hand-tooled leather, you’re more than welcome to move in with me. I’ll be more than happy to “saddle soap” ya! )
I can tan in a room with a strong reading light. Always have. Five minutes in the sun and I appear to change races, I swear.
I sunburned for the first time in my life when I was 35, and holy crow, it was painful. I never had to use sunblock before then, but apparently that one burn was enough to reset my “defaults”…now I get red and itchy and bumpy if I don’t sunblock heavily. I still turn brown every year, it just takes a lot longer.
I am looking forward to summer, though - my legs are the color of bratwurst and I’m beginning to glow in the dark. Bleeah.
Ah, you flatter me too much. Might I take this opportunity to have my piratical heart chase you over to another thread? (One you just posted on today?)
Or is this something better taken to email? Please forgive my noob tendancies- these are strange waters for me.
My incredibly tan twin brother once remarked on my “corpse white” legs. Lovely. He tans like nobody’s business, and I burst into flame after ten minutes in the sun. But I, for one, like being pale. When I’m 50 I’ll have relatively few wrinkles (oily skin helps that too) while he’ll look like a catcher’s mitt.
I also have that “visible veins” thing going on on my hands, but I think it’s cool. I know exactly where the deoxygenated blood in my hands is at all times!