Why no one is impressed by your autumn tan

You were happy and proud to go away for a week-end at the heart of September, but when you came back, you found none of your colleagues covetous of your bronzed skin. Some even had the nerve to put in snarky remarks that betrayed their suspicions. There’s a reason for that.

We already shared our tips to pull off the amazing feat of keeping your tan after the holidays. Our most zealous readers will have followed our advice and have gone unnoticed: their fresh and tanned complexion has never attracted the unwanted attention of their colleagues, who only noted the radiant glow and the olympic fettle bestowed upon them by controlled sun exposure, regular exfoliation and a few games of beach volley.

A bad idea

If your tan faded, and you are a bit jealous of your fresh-faced friend, it is important we act before drama unfolds. Indeed, there would be nothing worse than yield to your desires of a strictly sunbathing getaway.

Firstly, this goal can only be reached through sacrifices obvious to everyone on a Monday morning at work: even if you avoided the mistake of a food supplements cure to make the most of the sun, anybody will know that you spent your days burning under UV rays, your body coated with milking grease or monoi. It is unnecessary to come back to the dangers of the sun: you know them and your co-workers too. They also know that, technically, your tan contradicts the laws of physics.

Bad publicity

Secondly, express tanning is advertising for one of your best kept secret: your superficiality. The three-days weekend is not made to sunbathe but to relax. If, in passing, your skin gets a little darker, so much the better. But coming back too tanned is more and more seen as a lack of taste, and your Bernie-Ecclestone-in-permanent-vacation look is not as punk as Jim Jarmusch’s version.

Bad solutions

Your entourage is not credulous. He knows that your diet rich in beta-carotene doesn’t make your tan natural. That’s where you could pay for it. Because in tan, like in everything, artificial solutions are never elegant and foster teasing. Let’s sum up :

UV cabins are carcinogenic. UVB and UVA lights, even during short exposures, increase the risks of skin cancer, and cabins subject your skin to rays more powerful than those of the beach at the warmer hours.

Fake tanning is not as dangerous as Agent Orange but it has the same bad reputation. Like alcohol-based deodorants, it stains your crisp white shirts. Both betray a doubtful choice in grooming matters, the former because of the chemical reaction caused by alcohol and sweat, the latter by bleeding onto your collar. Moreover, fake tanning does not fade in an uniform manner but with a zebra-like effect that highlights the lack of naturalness of your skin’s colour.

And alternative solutions, like self tanning shower gel (yes, it’s a thing) or wipes, should bring ridicule on yourself should you ever speak their names. It would be too bad to spend every future holiday in North England to avoid the suspicion of a fake tan.