Everyone is really tanned!

[HerArtMaterials]

Maybe I didn't notice this over other summers, but I am seeing a lot of tans around, quite deep ones, that don't look fake.
Mostly younger women and girls, I am wondering if the cautions about sun damage have fallen out of trend? Or is this some exceptionally awesome bottled stuff?
I'm sure I've never seen so many tanned people for years. One friend of ours (guy in his 40's) turned up to visit with a deep tan that he said occurred in one day walking around Liverpool! So yeh, I get we have had some pretty strong sun and heat this year but it's like the warnings about sunscreen and UV damage have vanished.

Is anyone else noticing this? There's definitely always been a weird set of contradictions regarding sun tans - on the one hand most people will admit to being wary of cell damage and skin ageing, but on the other it seems just fine if you get your tan on a luxury holiday.
Scandinavians (I am generalising, I know!) don't seem scared of tans, nor those who enjoy yachts. Perhaps we lose our trepidation in the right situations...

Fake tans are much, much better and natural looking that they used to be.
I get comments about my tanned legs and ooh you’ve gone brown in the sun- it’s fake.

A lot of young people are using sunbeds again.

It's a mix of 30 year olds (me!) Finding natural fake tan and I've noticed almost every 20 year old I've worked with in the last couple of years use tanning beds a few times a week.

I've got a really dark tan. I tan very easily.

Fake tan looks really natural nowadays. You can still see some orange ones, but most of the products give you really natural look. I have noticed more and more girls try to follow Boohoo/Pretty little thing/Love island look, hence the tan.

I fake tan my legs, my knobbly knees seem to cast a huge shadow over the lower half of my legs

However, I do tan really easily. I’ve got quite a deep tan despite using sunscreen

I use fake tan too, the dove spa thing and it's the only one that suits my skin tone. I still could never get it all over, so natural looking, like the ones i see around.
Some people will of course have naturally darker skin, but I'm talking entire groups of women/girls with no variation of tone, just ALL deeply tanned. That can't be an average, surely?
The only other people I know with dark tans tend to work outdoors or do a lot of gardening.

My entire legs caught the sun on a hike a few weeks ago but it faded within a few days

But in truth fake tans are stupidly high maintenance. 8 times out of 10 my application is fine, but this morning my arms are crazy patchy. Didn't do anything different, but the slightest bit of sweat and it's zebra time!

Maintaining a deep and even fake tan (all over) would be some serious dedication. I have to scrub it off my arms now and start em again!

Some of what I see out there must be sunbed use.

I’m pretty tanned this year, despite using SPF 30 on my body and 50 on my face every day. I just have that skin type and it’s been a hot summer!

Not me! My skin does not tan and I have never found a fake tan which isn't orange on me.

What is interesting is how most of the people with these heavy tans are quite young. So if this is simply a naturally occurring skin reaction (tan easily) why are there less older women with it? Unless they're only on MN

What is a heavy tan? I think most people will use tan from a bottle.

My skins dark anyway.... but I can the appeal for Caucasian people to tan tbh (which ever way).

I have a decent tan this year despite wearing factor 50- 30 every single day. There has been a lot of sun and I've spent a lot of time outdoors. Fake tan is much much better these days and a lot of people get regular spray tans.
I really hope young people aren't using sun beds- I wish they could be banned. I've lost a good friend to melanoma who was only in her late 40's, know many many more people who have had melanoma at a young age.

To answer your last question @HerArtMaterials :
As you age your body produces less melanin so you don't go as brown.
People who are mahogany now will be light brown with the same amount of sun in 15/20 years' time.
Skin cancer risk is still an issue though.

And in response to the comment about yacht sailors, you can wear factor 90, cover up and wear a wide brimmed hat and still go brown (no idea why). But in general most people who can afford yachting as a hobby are of a generation that grew up believing that sunshine was good for you because when they were young a) they had been brought up by parents with personal experience of rickets b) they didn't necessarily have foreign holidays every year c) the ozone layer wasn't as trashed or known about d) sunscreen technology didn't really exist.

Generational change has been quite quick and stark in some things.

i went to Wales last week (Mumbles) & people were super tanned.

i saw young & old with proper mahogany tans.

Perhaps tans are back in fashion then, because there's seems to be the renewed interest in them that I recall from the 90's, before people were made more aware of UV dangers.

For the past 20 years I haven't seen this many tans, there was usually a variety from very pale to darker skin.
I doubt a few people on MN with fast tanning skin makes much of a difference, suddenly.

I certainly have noticed a correlation with extreme wealth and tanned skin, perhaps they are immune to carcinoma's?

I'm pretty tanned, but have been on the beach/in a pool every day this summer so 🤷

Always have factor 30 on my body and 50 on my face.

We sail too, quite often we are more weather beaten than tanned

I will need the brand names of these natural tans, please?

Big fan of Garnier Summer Body but dd compared me to an orange the last time I used it.

I've tanned very dark. I am half Indian and never lie or sit in the sun. I do run a lot so have no choice to be exposed and as soon as I go out I tan very easily, with sun factor.

I wear a factor 50 and reapply as I'm deathly pale and fair hair. No mahogany tans amongst the women I socialise with either. There's plenty of DDs teen friends (including her) who are sporting the pale look so I'd be more inclined to say that a natural look might be coming back into fashion, rather than fake.

All the younger women at my hairdressers use sunbeds. Most to prep for holidays and then to maintain the tan afterwards, so May to September. The tanning shop in my town is constantly busy with both men and women (all under 30 Id say).