Are The Active Ingredients In Self-Tanning Products Dangerous?

Posting Date: 03/01/2001

Nancy: I have a question regarding those sunless tanning lotions. They keep telling us to stay out of the sun, but we still want suntans. I wonder if there was any data or studies or anything on the active ingredients in these products?

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Dr. Dean: Let?s review the ways you can tan without going out into the sun to make sure we are on the wavelength. You?ve got your sun tanning products; we?re not talking about that. You have two other products on the market, one you rub on your skin, and the other is a pill you take. I don?t like the pill. It?s not legal here. Researchers have seen crystals in people?s retinas from using the pill. No one knows the significance of this. You?ve got to be out of your mind to take something orally just for the sake of looking like the color of cheddar. I think you may be looking for trouble if you ingest the pill.

Now these self-tanning lotions, they are pretty good. I mean, cosmetically, aesthetically, they have gotten one heck of a lot better, haven?t they? New methods look much better, but only if you apply them correctly. If you put them on wrong, then you?re going to get blotchy and you?ll look funky.

The only danger found in these lotions is that you may assume you are protected from the sun, but you?re not. This stuff just dyes your skin, but you?re still vulnerable to sunburn. There was a study earlier in the week that came out that looked at women who use these sunless tanning products. They found that they are more likely to use regular sunscreen, which sounds good, but they were also more likely to get burned. So go and figure that out. They knew enough to use sunscreen, but they also showed higher rates of burning their skin. So you?ve got to be careful.

If you?re going to use it, I see no danger, especially if it makes you feel better. The reason why a suntan looks good is a great example of how we self-program ourselves aesthetically. I?m always talking to people about what our standards of beauty are. In the past, the only people with tans were peasants ? men who worked outside as laborers ? lower class people. Victorian women walked around with parasols to protect them from the sun. This was until CoCo Channel (the fashion designer) came back from France around 1930 or something with a tan and began the whole fad of tanning for health. It?s funny, but you do look healthier with a tan. When I see friends who come back from vacation, they just seem to look better. And it?s silly, but that?s the way we?re programmed. What can I tell you?