Discover The History Of Tanning!

Learning the history of tanning will shed new light on how eager people are to be hip and healthy looking...even many many years ago.

For many years, people have associated a deep bronze tan with health and beauty, but this was not always the case.

There are many examples, throughout history (and the history of tanning), of societies who valued pale skin. The Romans and Greeks, for example, used lead paints and chalks to whiten their skin, often with disastrous long-term effects like lead poisoning.

Arsenic was another favorite skin whitener, further demonstrating that people throughout history have shown poor judgment!

The beginning of the history of tanning is quite interesting...

In Elizabethan England, pale-faced women would even paint blue lines on their skin to make it appear translucent, and women carried parasols to protect themselves when they went outdoors. This fashion trend also became popular in the United States.

Tanning came into vogue by accident. In 1923 French designer, Coco Chanel was seen leaving a nobleman's yacht with a deep suntan after cruising from Paris to Cannes. Although she later claimed to have stayed out in the sun too long, her tan soon set a fashion trend. The looser clothes, which became fashionable during the "Jazz Age", meant that women were freed from clothes that covered all of their skin, which naturally led to more tanning.

It also became fashionable to spend holidays baking at the beach; F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender is the Night showed off the world of celebrities spending time on the beaches of the French Riviera.

From the thirties onward tanning became even more popular.

The fifties saw the very first bikinis, and the "all-over" tan became even more popular. Self-tanning products such as brown creams and dyes also became available, allowing people to "patch" any white spots in their tan or even to simulate a tan.

Even with these products, however, tanning was mostly restricted to the summer months, except for a privileged few who could make winter trips to warmer climes like Florida or the Caribbean.

Tighter schedules in the seventies, eighties, and nineties put a real crimp in people's ability to build and maintain a proper tan.

Tanning studios and salons began to appear in the eighties to address this situation, and they quickly became highly popular. With just a few sessions in a tanning bed, customers could establish a base tan, and further trips to the salon would only enhance this golden bronze look.

As the nineties closed and the world entered the new millennium tanning salons became a growth industry that remains strong to this day. New advances in tanning beds and booths have shortened tanning session times, and sunless tanning booths have provided a quick and easy alternative for those who prefer not to subject themselves to ultraviolet light.

With more popularity these days than at any point in the history of tanning, the tanning "craze" shows no sign of slowing in coming years.

Lear more about the History Of Tanning and bookmark this site. More updates are comming all the time on tanning and related skin care, mind and body care, and more.