I was hoping to show up in Cabo for a company trip all tanned and toned, but it looks like that’s not going to happen. We leave first thing in morning. Oh well…. In the last minute flurry of finding cute little maxi dresses, cover-ups, and… {oh yeah, almost forgot} a bathing suit, my only option at this point is “tan in a tube.” I can apply it tonight and be tan by morning. Voila!
But, you know what? I think I’m finally over it. There comes a time in our lives when we reach certain conclusions about ourselves, about the world around us, and about self-tanning products. It requires some soul searching, of course… {but you knew I would say that, right?}
So here’s my conclusion: Yes, they’ve come a long way since Coppertone introduced the original QT (Quick Tan) in the 60’s. But, they still smell terrible, have a slightly orange-y tint to them, and are impossible to “apply evenly” as the directions say. Just check out the elbows, ankles, or knees of the next slightly orange woman you notice. They’re a dead give-away.
There was a time, you know, when fair skin was preferred and protected by women. It was considered fashionable. Attractive. Desirable. But, then Coco Chanel had to go and change all that. In 1923, she showed up golden brown after accidentally getting a “suntan” sailing in the Riviera. And the fad was born. Today, a $609+ million industry, growing by leaps and bounds every year, is dedicated to imitating the appearance of a suntan.
Time Magazine* wrote about the “bake or fake tanning conundrum” at the beginning of the summer. With melanoma on the rise and the potential risks of inhaling spray-on tanning chemicals, their medical expert concluded that a topical self-tanner is “the only safe way to have a tan appearance.” There ya have it.
So… on the eve of jetting off to Cabo with a list a mile long of things I still need to do, I stand by my most recent and certain conclusion in the matter, and here it is: As much as I love the appearance of a suntan, the truth is {and I have plunged the depths to reach it}… I simply don’t have time for it anymore. Seriously, it’ll be midnight before I get around to pulling out that expensive little tube of fake tan, and there’s no way it’s going on evenly as directed. I’d be a dead give-away sitting by the pool in Cabo… pitifully trying to cover up one fashion faux pas with a worse one.
And that, my friends, I can say with absolute certainty, I have no time for. I’ve reached at certain age in life when tanning is no longer a conundrum. And Coco Chanel no longer dictates my fashion sense. So… Voila! And Cabo, here we come!
*http://time.com/3896827/self-tanner-tanning-lotion/.