World News

The Tanning Paradox

By Reese Hanna '27 in Spring 2026

If you have an impulse to check the UV whenever there’s a remote trace of sun or a hint of warmth outside, you are not alone. If you returned from Spring Break with peeling skin, pink splotches, or perhaps a nice tan that your friends commented on, you probably found yourself among a fair amount of students at MA. And if you were visiting colleges on the East Coast and enviously bundled up in layers, then that makes you and me both. But why does having the ability to tan raise such a jealousy? 

Perhaps it’s because for a lot of us “tan lines are an aesthetic marker of a summer or vacation well lived,” as said by Noelle Cantarano, VP of global marketing at Isle of Paradise, Tan-Luxe, and Tanologist. But this does not apply to everyone. Many people find themselves with tanned or sunkissed skin unintentionally for a menagerie of reasons, like relaxing (or falling asleep) in the sun, or doing other activities outside like surfing, hiking, or playing a sport. But increasingly, people are striving to have tan skin to feel more attractive. 

However, being tan hasn’t always been a beauty standard in America. Way back when most families worked on farms, being pale was a sign of wealth as it conveyed someone’s freedom to stay inside (UPenn Press). Come the Industrial Revolution in the early twentieth century, most workplaces were confined to warehouses and factories. With this came a shift to tan skin now signaling privilege because that indicated one’s luxury to spend time outside. Soon after, in 1923, Coco Chanel stepped off a yacht, freshly docked from the French Riviera with a chic glow, and tanning took off. Fast forward to the ‘60s and ‘70s, being tan came to represent “youth, freedom, and sex appeal.” (Vogue) By the ‘80s, the trend grew widespread and methods to darken skin ranged from laying in the sun for hours to people dousing themselves in Coca-Cola (Vogue). 

Today, we may not indulge in a Coca-Cola soak when we set up shop at Stinson, but many of us get just as sticky coated in Bali Body tanning oils and Sol De Janeiro sunscreens. The modern day tanning effort does not even end there; a lack of sunlight does not get in the way. Indoor tanning beds. Fake tan. Even permanent tattoos of tan lines. Yes, Americans do not play about their bronzed gleam. But we must acknowledge that this dedication is obsessive and truthfully pretty weird. 

People of color and non-white people have faced unforgivable discrimination on the basis of their skin color for centuries and are forced to keep navigating it in a racialized society. Despite this, White people can change the shade of their appearance and idealize it as an aesthetic. Published author and writer for the UPenn press Catherine Cocks “[argues] that pale-skinned people’s tanning [has] constituted a kind of ‘brownface’” because of the belief they can tan to “become more youthful and sexy—that is, more like nonwhites, who had long been accused of being childlike and promiscuous.” Her evaluation illuminates the double standard of having dark skin, alluding to a disrespect which comes with obsessively tanning without awareness. 

Recent trending tiktoks have also called attention to this irony of current American beauty standards. Particularly the patterns of White girls seeking Black features: getting injections to have thicker lips, plastic surgeries to have curvier figures, and you guessed it– chasing tanner skin.

 I am not telling anyone what to do or not do with their body, but I do believe it’s important to recognize the privilege to dabble in the beauty of Black excellence yet remain immune to its discrimination. I won’t ever tell someone to stop tanning, but instead to do it with intentionality.