a rooskie in dublin
TANNING OBSESSION!
by Irina Kuksova
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It's written in the Commandments of our culture that a tan equals health, wealth and a better quality of life. It gives you a certain status. If you are really tanned, you:
(a) Have money to burn on an exotic holiday or lead an active life outdoors.
(b) Take care of the way your body looks.
The above is true for the countries that can boast proper Summers. What I find incredibly strange is why the tan is so fashionable in Ireland where the most likely way of gettting it, seems to be in a solarium or by using immoderate amounts of fake tan cream. (And before you say that a tanned Irish person is a just-back-from-a-holiday Irish person, let me point out that the latter is much more often BURNED, not tanned.)
Now being tanned is an intrinsic part of life in Mediterranean countries. There you get that 'brownie' look just by leaving your house once in a while. Plus since you are likely to get heatstroke if you wear anything more than a bikini/trunks, at least you know by the end of the day you are going to get more than just a bit of colour in your nose. Mediterranean tanning fans keep their status quo through the Winter by getting a five minute solarium session for hands and face only. Note that this is not to get from 'white chocolate' to 'milk chocolate' tint. It's to get from 'milk chocolate' to '80 percent cacao.'
In Ireland if you want a golden tint, you gotta seize that sunny weekend. Even if you're lucky though, on Sunday night we see more red tanners than golden ones. It always seems to come as a surprise to the Irish that one can have too much sun. But not too worry. Once the flaky skin is gone and the new tender white layer is revealed, the whole process can be repeated time and time again. It gets technically understandable why you might want to consider using fake tan after all.
We keep wanting to be the opposite of ourselves. Filippino beauties hide from the sun under umbrellas, popping tan inhibiting tablets. Irish beauties loll beneath the occasionally blazing sun trying to get a Cadbury tint at any cost... The answer probably lies in a more natural approach. Liking yourself, accepting yourself the way you are, and more to the point enjoying who you are. Fashionable things are usually the least natural. It's more natural to like all kinds of chocolate.
posted by heelers | 4:08 AM
3 Comments:
The thought of tender Irish skin basking in the sun is scary. Don't those girls realize that their pretty pale skin (sometimes with a smattering of freckles) is beautiful?
I have no choice - I just get brown. One year I was doing a customers hair and she asked me if I had been laying out in the sun. I told her no and she said, "What the hell are you - a loaf of bread? The temperature goes up and you get brown? Well - yes...
My mother says that we never appreciate our looks until we are older. She was flat-chested and short; now she is a trim, cute senior citizen. I wanted to be olive-complected and brunette like my cousins. But they loved my blue eyes and most of them dye their hair blonde.
I was burned yesterday while accompanying my family to the beach. I'm the only one of my family who burns easily, and my tan isn't brown - it stays ruddy.
I find pale skin and freckles pretty too!
Unnatural looks are only fun when one experiments during one's teen years...When I see a woman who is over 30 and looks like a plastic doll, I think she's either a pop star or just a poor soul who never figured out how to do the best with what she's got!
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