Are Tanning Booths an Effective Replacement to Sunlight?
We use technology every day to augment and improve our lives. From cell phones, microwaves, cars to smart fabrics and tanning booths. When indoor tanning first appeared, many questioned why someone would want to pay for something they could get for free just by standing outside. Now look at the industry, it’s huge, and hundreds of thousands of people get value out of it every day. It does beg the question though, are tanning booths an effective replacement for sunlight?
Sunlight is something we have in abundance in Florida. It’s free, unlimited, available most days and you can get it anywhere. So why stay indoors and lock yourself in a cupboard to get the same effect? There is a lot of talk about the downsides of tanning booths, but there are also advantages too. Sunlight damages skin, we all know that, but it also contains radiation, quite a bit of it. Most of us have heard of UVA and UVB, the two main types of radiation emitted by the sun, as these are the two types that affect our skin and turn it brown. The rays emitted by the sun can penetrate the skin and cause our DNA to mutate, which we call skin cancer. While the risks are also present in tanning booths, they are controlled.
The sunlight that hits our skin while sunbathing is dependent on a variety of things, such as weather, cloud cover, atmospheric conditions and time of year. While we can take reasonable precautions in the care of our skin, the actual dose we receive can fluctuate. We also spend more time sunbathing than we do in a tanning booth. Often, sunbathing is part of a social activity which can extend our exposure without our realizing it. Using a tanning booth allows control over all of this. The UVA and UVB is strictly controlled, constant and predictable. That allows you to control how much exposure you get at any one time.
Tanning booths are also time-controlled, so exposure is limited to minutes instead of hours. There are no friends in a booth, no distractions to extend exposure and everything is done under strict control. While it may seem a little clinical, then end result is the main thing, and a healthy, even tan is achieved quickly, and safely with the proper use of a tanning booth.
While there are still risks involved in using tanning booths or beds, as long as those risks are managed effectively and the proper precautions taken, you should be fine. Staff should make you aware of proper skincare, offering the correct tanning lotion to suit the type of bulb in the booth, and an effective aftercare lotion. Most tanning salons certify their staff so they should have at least a minimum amount of knowledge to assist you. Unless you have friends who are dermatologists, that’s more than you have at the beach.
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