A glimpse of sunshine always prompts the great British unveiling of skin.
With the beauty press talking about getting “summer ready” from February, the reckless and ignorant are ignoring the much-publicised skin cancer dangers of sunbeds to bake themselves with tanning lamps of ultraviolet radiation to produce a cosmetic tan.
It shocked me that sunbed use are as popular as ever. Not the old home sandwich-maker sunbeds of the ‘80s, but the stand-up booths in tanning salons.
It’s called the "Love Island effect."
Pale is pasty and brown is attractive, period, despite the risks of becoming one of the 2,300 who die every year from melanoma or one of the tens of thousands who have to have moles and chunks of skin cut out regularly because they have turned cancerous.
Why do these machines still exist? The dangers of exposure to the sun’s natural rays are well known.
How can people believe artificial ways to release melanin to change the colour of skin be any better?
Perhaps they believe faking it isn’t as dangerous and is a safer alternative like spray tans and creams? They might believe that because they don’t burn, it is a safer alternative to being outside.
Sunbeds work by creating the chemical melanin with tanning lamps that emit the same type of UV rays as the sun. They emit ultraviolet radiation to produce melanin, which tans the skin.
The charity Melanoma Focus is trying to reenergise the awareness campaign about the dangers, stressing sun bed tans are just as dangerous as lying out in the sun.
Unsurprisingly, 18-25-year-olds are the main users; this was the generation slathered in sun cream by their hyper-vigilant parents amid the national campaigns to stay safe in the sun. They must know the hazards.
They would see the aftermath of what sun rays did to their parents and grandparents’ generation and the rise in melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, risi8ng in the UK.
Yet sunbed use across the UK is alarmingly high. Like smoking, it’s a serious health concern.
It uses NHS resources that could be avoided by personal responsibility and action.
85pc of melanoma cases are caused by exposure to too much ultraviolet radiation.
Sunbed use might be well-regulated – the industry says if only sunshine was regulated as well – with trained staff and safety measures that sunbathing outside but regulations don’t eradicate risk.
It’s a part of the beauty business that needs a health warning and the dangers rammed home to young people.
Effects of the sun are horribly ageing and appeal to the vanity of not ending up with leathery crinkly skin.
Fake it not bake – and out of a bottle.
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