I tan very easily and keep a tan for ages. My face goes real white in winter, though.
I have a lot of freckles (face only) in sun, and combined with my red hair (henna) and green eyes, it looks fab
I love sitting out in the sun, but I don’t roast myself, and always hydrate my skin (sweet almond oil with 30% Lavender essential oil), and i will never EVER use a sunbed. ugh.
Here in Ireland, a lotof people don’t tan, even though they have dark hair. The joke goes:
Irish people turn from bleu to white, from white to red, then they peel and turn white again
I’m so pale I make Queen Elizabeth look Third World.
Not only did I never go in search of a tan, but I never go outdoors without moisturizer/sunscreen, even in the winter. Result: I’m 46 and have virtually no wrinkles (except for a couple of “sneer lines” around my mouth). Gravity, on the other hand . . .
Photo proof that I am the palest girl in the family. (Ignore all the other crap on the page. I never mess with that thing unless it’s to upload a picture or two.) Obviously, I am the one on the right standing up, who appears to glow in the dark.
Of my four sisters, usually the girl below me is the one who tans the best. (She practically lives on the beach.) If I walk out to get the mail, I come back with blisters. The only reason my arms have any color to them whatsoever is because they’ve been burned so many times. I have freckles all over my shoulders from playing outside as a kid. And next year, I’m going to marry a very fair-skinned guy. Boy, our kids really are going to glow in the dark!
I adore my pale-ness. Try catsuits, tight pants and other skin-tight clothing that just doesn’t expose your skin to light. I get teased about being pale now, but anyone who touches me never fails to mention how soft and smooth my skin is. And it’s gonna stay that way!
Now that I’ve lost weight and actually considering going out in public shirtless again (not everyday mind you, my job doesn’t do casual day yet) I have to do something to keep from looking like a King of the Hill character. I’m wary of the tanning bed, but I’m going about 5 times to get some kind of “starter tan.” All the while, I’m praying my vanity doesn’t kill me.
Stupid skinny tan people!!! If it weren’t for you I’d have been a sex god years ago!!!
I wish I had the very, very white skin that doesn’t tan. Atleast it would be all the same color, instead of white face and torso, dark arms, hands and feet, and medium legs. I also have the weird pattern that zweisamkeit mentioned when I get cold.
Anybody ever had sun poisoning? I got a bad case of it when I was 16. It’s like the worst sunburn you’ve ever had multiplied by 10. Not only does your skin turn red, you also get purple splotches that look like giant hickeys, and it feels like you’re burned and bruised at the same time.
Kalhoun, I saw a news story about that a few months ago. It’s something I would consider, but I haven’t heard of any local places that do it.
Max, get some lip balm with sunblock and apply it to your lips and nipples before using the tanning bed.
hilly, that sounds so damn hot when you say it! But I’ve never burned there before. Is there a reason I should be more cautious now? Is it because of burn issues or skin cancer?
So flattering and yet so descriptive! Besides - who doesn’t like fish?
I don’t tan. I avoid the sun. When on beach holidays I wear a hat and submerse myself in a VAT of SPF 30 before going outside. I usually still turn pink. Bah.
On a more positive note - I’m 30 and consistantly get guessed about 10 years younger. (I suppose that could be because I act 12:D)
Count me in. I too am super pale. Especially my legs. I am upset that winter is ending because shorts season is coming. In the fall and winter I could wear all kinds of cute short skirts with tights. Now I am dreading wearing my short skirts with my super-white legs! (No, panty hose is not an option!)
When I was a teenager, I had all the time in the world to lay out at the pool and tan gradually over the whole summer. Now as an adult, the only light I ever get is flourescent light in my office! And I have noticed that as I get older, I burn much worse in much less time. Why is that???
And I know that most men like at least a slightly tanned woman. I look horrendous in shorts and a tank top! (And a tan is slimming, too.) My ex-boyfriend used to make fun of me all the time about how pale I was! So now that I am newly single, and want to look my best, I am actually thinking of going to the tanning bed a few times, just to get my legs some color. I will cover up my face, because my face burns in 3 minutes in the sun. I know it’s horrible and goes against everything I stand for! But I just don’t know what else to do!
I have tried that tanning lotion and spray and it only makes me look orange…
Well, being an incredibly pale fellow myself (years of computer geekdom combined with a dash of nerdiness), I think the alabaster look is fine. Of course, I also like the tan look. And the dark complexion look. And the freckled look. Hmmm, I seem to be easy to please.
But hillbilly queen, I’ll go for your pale look anytime!
I too have the Visible Woman look. By mid-winter, I get so pale that when light hits my face a certain way, blue veins are even visible there! And I can’t tan- I burn, then peel, then go back to pale, albeit with a slightly more beige tint. I got sun-poisoning once when I visited Kenya. It was really bad. All the exposed parts of my body were lobster red, they hurt even to look at, and all my skin felt like it was too tight for my body. Add to this the weird fever effects like dizziness, disorientation, vertigo, etc. I didn’t realize it was happening, since it was the dry season, and while it was hot, it wasn’t so amazingly hot, and though wearing a large hat, I didn’t put any sunscreen on. Big mistake. I started feeling dizzier and dizzier, which at first I thought was dehydration, but then I puked and had to be dragged back into the tent. I would have been panicking, convinced I had contracted Ebola or something, but I was at that point too out of it to realize. Long story short, (too late?) after a few days I got better, although my skin started coming off in big peely chunks, which caused the locals to give me a wide berth fearing some hideous contagious skin disease.
I’ve been wearing sunscreen since highschool. I decided around that time that the sun and I would part company. I think I’ve finally come to terms with my dark hair and pale skin. My brother and sister are real beachy - tan skin and blonde hair…My sister is 8 years younger than me. I’m in my early 30s and someone asked if she was older than me…I have to say, I’m kind of glad I don’t have all that sun damage!
I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, and unfortunately for me, I am just not engineered for it. My mother lathered me in 45 SPF sunscreen from the time I was a toddler; I was the only kid I knew who’d get in big trouble if I came home from the pool with a sunburn. “Oh, look, there’s Audrey; she can’t get in the pool yet. She has to wait twenty minutes for her sunscreen to set.”
Having been born new-penny-redheaded (although it fell out and grew in ash blonde and is now somewhere in between) my mother was determined to save my pasty–err–porcelain skin.
And now, at the ripe old age of 24, I have a construction worker tan on my right arm just from driving to work at five o’clock. Yes. FIVE O’CLOCK. It takes me ten minutes max to get to work, and in five o’clock sun for ten minutes a day in my car, my right arm is noticeably darker below my short-sleeved work shirt. I have taken to putting sunscreen on that arm just so I can wear sleeveless shirts without looking like a moron.
This is to illustrate
a.) How appallingly little sun I get,
b.) How quickly I tan and
c.) How quickly I will burn if I am not absurdly careful.
I can tan with a mere 30 minutes’ exposure to mid-afternoon sun. Any more than that and I burn. I believe I am engineered for the gray skies of northern Ireland; this equator-friendly south Texas sun just wasn’t planned for in my DNA.
I think I am going to adopt the Visible Woman terminology from hence forward! That does describe me so well!
My poor skin is so fair that I’ve actually burned through denim! Since I got older too I had to start taking medicine that makes me even MORE sensitive to sun exposure. The only sunscreen that really works for me is what my friend calls “SPF My House”
