A BURNING ISSUE Alexandra Friend investigates why we should all give up sunbathing
There’s no such thing as a safe tan but if you come home without one, did you even vacay? Alexandra Friend explores the conflict around sunbathing and explains what made her quit
I’m looking skincare expert Tom Ogden hard in the eye. ‘Do you tan?’ As European business manager for Australian skincare brand Alpha-h, Tom is official poster boy for scrupulous, non-negotiable sun protection. But Tom is also my friend; we meet not only at press briefings but at weddings and summer barbecues, so I expect him to tell me the truth. The answer, unwaveringly, is no. ‘No, but do you?’ I try again. Still no. Reader, sometimes beauty people fib. I know magazine editors who smoke and skincare gurus who don’t wear sunscreen, though they’d never admit it on Instagram. But Tom’s skin is glossy as butter and just as soft. No creeping pigmentation, and no more creases around the eye than you’d see on someone 10 years younger (he’s a puckish 40-something). Tom, I decide, does not tan. Elsewhere, red-headed beauty journo Jo Glanville-blackburn has a décolleté so creamy it apparently had an entire table of writers cooing over its silky, unblemished gorgeousness at a recent work dinner. She’s 54 and a lifelong sun avoider.
Tanning – for real, not the buffed-on stuff of bronzers and DHA – is a curious thing. Like smoking, we know sunbathing is bad for us. But resistance melts faster than gelato when faced with the deliciousness of stretching a bikini strap to one side and comparing last week’s buttermilk tones to this week’s café au lait (or wherever your own tanning trajectory takes you). The standard
isn’t such be beauty slowly no Some okay. supposed such thing and drill facts thing But as don’t has a for here’s to as safe long be you burn, a ‘safe’ that tan. the been (I’ll then thing: kind Full tan, keep that everything stop. of if there’s while it feature): you brief; take there’s no this will if it skin, the taken sun it’s an place, causes indication which any change can that ultimately cell of colour damage lead in has your to skin the skin, cancer. UVA And rays while don’t, UVB so can rays wreak burn DNA damage deep in the dermis without there being any sign on the surface. I quit sunbathing five years ago. I don’t love the thought of melanoma, but if I’m honest it was my pigmentation that was bothering me. I go brown at the drop of a hat but the older I get, the muddier my face looks, particularly around my nose and mouth. When the tan fades, I’m left with patches that even the strongest of vitamin C formulas can’t shift, the skin on my décolleté looks thickened and as for the skin around my eyes… well, I don’t recognise it as mine any more. Ogden likens the effect of sun damage on the skin to letting the air out of a balloon, such is the deterioration of collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid. Meanwhile, at London’s Medicetics skin clinics, Dr Vicky Dondos (famed for her delicate touch with injectables) won’t treat anyone that deliberately puts their face in the sun. ‘No judgement, but it’s a complete waste of money. No one wants to hear it, but sunscreen is the best antiageing product out there. Needles are just the cherry on the cake.’ Does Dr Dondos tan? ‘The sun will never directly hit my face. If I’m on holiday and swimming, there might be a bit of bounce from the sea but that’s it.’ As for the body, Dr Dondos turns a blind eye to the lightest holiday glow, pointing out that if you’re spending two weeks in the Med it’s impossible not to pick up a bit of colour, even when not actively sunbathing. She’s right. Once I’d committed to a sun-free face, it seemed odd not to treat my body accordingly. But even determinedly sitting in the shade and applying a solid coat of factor 30 upwards when (briefly) venturing into the sun, I pick up some colour every summer, just not anything that
would register as a tan, and never on my face. To that end, I wear not only a hat but saucerlike sunglasses, as research suggests that when the retina registers high levels of UVA, the body produces melanin as a defence mechanism, even in the shade. And actually, I’ve discovered that holidays are much nicer for swapping taxing hours spread-eagled by the pool (so sweaty, so squinty!) for reading a book under a beach umbrella.
On a sunny day in London, I’m just as careful. The expanding category of mist-on sunscreens means I can layer on throughout the day without smooshing my make-up, and I always pick the shadowy side of the street. I’m convinced that everything on the beauty landscape points to the demise of the suntan. Aesthetically speaking, even bronzing make-up isn’t quite so bronze any more: Chanel’s annual Les Beiges collection gives skin more glow than colour, while MAC’S new Next To Nothing Bronzer, £23.50, is light and luminous. Terry Barber, director of make-up artistry at MAC, says he hasn’t done an ‘uber-tan’ on the runway in years. ‘We’re more likely to push a bit of blusher into the cheeks or add some freckles over the nose; maybe do a honey-coloured tint rather than completely change the colour of the skin so the look is sunny, not tanned.’
If properly bronzed is your preference, self-tan gets more believable and easier to use every year, and looks lovelier in the bathroom than it once did.
Elsewhere on Red’s beauty desk, Gillian (naturally freckled and Titian-haired) doesn’t try to tan because she quite simply can’t. Alice doesn’t mind picking up a bit of colour but doesn’t go out of her way because she knows she can whip up an impeccable fake tan in her hotel room (read her self-tan guide on page 94), while Eve basks in the sun like a cat (though not for hours on end, she’s keen to point out, and always with factor 50 on her face). However, a quick poll of Red’s fashion department reveals that coming home with a tan is the key driver in planning holiday locations, schedules and even companions, so I’m directing them to the chic sunscreens on page 99, and murmuring this advice from Dr Marko Lens, an authority on premature ageing and skin cancer, and founder of Zelens skincare. ‘Sunscreen exists so you can play with your children on the beach for 40 minutes without risking melanoma. Not so you can bake in the sun all day.’ Advice they’ll hate, but they’ll live with it.