Hannah Clark got her first spray tan for her school prom and has never looked back. \u201cI\u2019m not proud of it, but I have used sunbeds,\u201d says the 29-year-old graphic designer from Plymouth. Her goal is \u201cthat glow you get when coming back from holiday. You know, when you walk around and people say: \u2018Oh, you look really healthy.\u2019 It\u2019s that feeling I\u2019m chasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark is far from alone. On TikTok and Instagram, posts with the hashtag \u201csunbed\u201d number more than 500,000. Last year, a survey from skin cancer charity Melanoma Focus<\/a> found that 28% of UK adults use sunbeds, but this rose to 43% among those aged 18 to 25. This new generation of younger tanning obsessives will go to extreme lengths to darken their skin. Some track the UV index \u2013 the level of the sun\u2019s ultraviolet radiation \u2013 and deliberately sit in the sun at the most dangerous times of day. Others use unregulated nasal tanning sprays and injections, which rely on a chemical to darken the skin.<\/p>\n All the people under 30 I spoke to for this article know how dangerous tanning is. NHS guidance states that there is no safe or healthy way to get a tan<\/a> and advises keeping out of the sun between 11am and 3pm, wearing sunscreen of at least factor 30, and covering up with clothing, hats and sunglasses. Dr Zoe Venables, a consultant dermatologist at Norfolk and Norwich University hospitals, with an interest in skin cancer epidemiology, says that when skin turns darker after UV exposure it \u201csuggests you\u2019re damaging those cells in your skin\u201d.<\/p>\n Sunbeds are categorised by the World Health Organization<\/a> (WHO) as \u201cdangerous\u201d \u2013 with their cosmetic use increasing incidences of skin cancers and driving down the age at which skin cancer first appears. It says people who have used a sunbed at least once at any point in their lives have a 20% greater chance of developing melanoma \u2013 the deadliest of the three most common forms of skin cancer<\/a> \u2013 than someone who hasn\u2019t. For someone who has used a tanning bed for the first time before the age of 35, there is a 59% greater chance of developing melanoma.<\/p>\n Despite this stark reality, having a tan is still presented to many young people as aspirational \u2013 whether it\u2019s faux tan-lines appearing on catwalks<\/a> or bronzed influencers on holidays in Dubai. Many sunbed shop owners sell tanning as a form of \u201cself-care\u201d, while influencers post \u201ccome for a sunbed with me\u201d videos. Perhaps most perniciously, some sunbed shops even make light of the known risk associated with them. One meme shared on Instagram by a tanning salon overlays the text: \u201cWhen someone tells you sunbeds are bad for you\u201d with a clip from the sitcom Benidorm, in which the character Madge Harvey says: \u201cI spy with my little eye something beginning with AB: absolute bollocks.\u201d<\/p>\n Nasal tanning sprays can \u2018cause nausea, vomiting, high blood pressure.\u2019 Illustration: Jacky Sheridan\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Emily Harris, 23, from Leeds, uses sunbeds. Her parents both work for the NHS and have warned her about the risks. But she says that having spent most of her teenage years in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by various global conflicts and the ever-looming presence of climate breakdown, the dangers of a sunbed seem small by comparison. \u201cYou can die of anything \u2013 do you know what I mean?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n While Harris, who works in sales, can\u2019t afford to use sunbeds all the time, she uses them whenever she has \u201ca bit of spare money\u201d, making use of the deals that salons offer. Before a recent holiday, she bought a package that gave her unlimited minutes, with a daily limit, for four weeks. \u201cI was going every day,\u201d Harris says, which she admits \u201cis a bit silly\u201d, but adds: \u201cI was trying to make the most of the package.\u201d<\/p>\n As well as using tanning beds, Harris is \u201cobsessed with tracking the UV\u201d, and has the index on the lock-screen of her phone. She and her colleagues plan their breaks around times when the UV index is highest, so they can maximise their exposure to the dangerous radiation. A number of her friends also use nasal tanning sprays, which were the subject of a Trading Standards warning<\/a> issued earlier this year that stated: \u201cThese products can cause nausea, vomiting, high blood pressure, and even changes in mole shape and size \u2026 studies have shown a potential link to melanoma, a type of skin cancer.\u201d Harris tried one when her friend had a spare bottle, but \u201cdidn\u2019t see a result\u201d so hasn\u2019t used one again. Was she worried about what might have been in it? \u201cTo be honest, not really. I know it\u2019s bad, but at the time, I was more bothered about getting a tan.\u201d<\/p>\n Nasals, as they are known, usually contain a lab-made substance called melanotan II, a chemical that darkens skin pigmentation. Though it is illegal to sell medicinal products containing melanotan II in the UK, cosmetic products fall outside that remit<\/a> and are easily available on social media. Dr Suraj Kukadia, a GP known to his 282,000 TikTok followers as \u201cDoctor Sooj\u201d, is concerned about the popularity of nasal sprays. He says melanotan II can also lead to \u201cpainful and sustained erections in men, kidney damage, acne and muscle-wasting\u201d.<\/p>\n Faux tan-lines on the catwalk. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Holly Feldman, 25, lives in Surrey and is the CEO of a swimwear boutique. She has more than 10,000 followers on Instagram and is often sent free tanning products such as nasal sprays and injections. \u201cI think that was why it was so addictive for me,\u201d she says. Though she had no idea what was in these products, and the injections in particular made her feel unwell, she says: \u201cI was just trying to turn a blind eye to it because I was so obsessed with how it made me look.\u201d<\/p>\n Feldman recently appeared on former Love Island contestant Olivia Attwood\u2019s ITV documentary series The Price of Perfection<\/a>, in which Attwood explores the risks of various cosmetic treatments. Being on the show made Feldman realise how much potential damage she could be doing. She hasn\u2019t used a tanning injection for four months, and has reduced her use of a nasal spray to a couple of times over the past month, when previously it would have been four inhalations a day. \u201cI do still use sunbeds,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I have cut down. There was a time when I was going on them four, five, six times a week and now I only go on them once or twice.\u201d<\/p>\n Data from the UK and Ireland\u2019s Sunbed Association suggests that tanning beds are most popular among 25- to 45-year-olds, and more women than men use them. But that\u2019s not to say gen Z men are free from the pressure to sport a tan.<\/p>\n Craig Hopkins, a 29-year-old dance teacher based in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, says he uses sunbeds to \u201clook like I\u2019ve just come back from holiday\u201d. He prefers the look of a \u201creal\u201d tan to a fake tan, which ties in to existing social media trends such as \u201clooking expensive\u201d and \u201cquiet luxury\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Instagram especially, everyone is always on holiday, always super brown. So it\u2019s probably just trying to keep up,\u201d Harris says. Like Harris, Hopkins also tried a nasal spray once, via a friend who used to sell them, but it made him \u201cfeel really sick\u201d.<\/p>\n Despite the known risks and side-effects, most of the young people I spoke to for this article were still willing to give nasal sprays a try. Megan Urbaniak, a 23-year-old nail technician from Rotherham, says: \u201cI feel as if I know a million people who use them and everyone seems to have been fine. It does kind of weird me out that they don\u2019t tell you what\u2019s in them, but I\u2019m sure there\u2019s worse in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Urbaniak is a regular sunbed user \u2013 and has even encouraged friends to use them before going on holiday \u201cbecause it stops you from burning immediately when going in the sun\u201d. Venables is quick to debunk claims such as this, saying that all it does is put your skin through even more \u201cexcess UV exposure\u201d. She points to another type of common skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, which is thought to be due to cumulative UV exposure.<\/p>\n \u2018I was just turning a blind eye to the risks.\u2019 Photograph: Dangubic\/Getty Images (posed by model)<\/p>\n While Urbaniak does not seem to be put off by any safety concerns, she is keen to stress that there is a \u201ccultural line that you probably shouldn\u2019t cross\u201d when it comes to tanning as a white person. \u201cI don\u2019t think that my body is capable of going that colour, but if it was, I\u2019d like to think someone would tell me to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, it isn\u2019t just white people who like to tan. Melissa Jones, 19, from Chester, says she has \u201cseen way more people of colour \u2013 including south-east Asian girls like me \u2013 getting into tanning. For me, it\u2019s not about being darker \u2013 it\u2019s about adding that warm, radiant glow and evening out my tone\u201d.<\/p>\n Like Feldman, Jones uses the word \u201caddictive\u201d in relation to her tanning habit, and thinks it helps her in her job as a content creator. Tanned skin \u201clooks amazing on camera and in content\u201d, she says. However, she has recently switched from using tanning beds to using only fake tan. \u201cI became more aware of the risks, like ageing, skin cancer, all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Jak Howell, who was diagnosed with stage three advanced melanoma when he was 21. Photograph: undefined\/Courtesy of Jak Howell<\/p>\n The WHO has urged countries to consider banning sunbeds: Australia banned all commercial sunbeds 10 years ago<\/a> and Brazil banned them in 2009<\/a>. Kukadia and Venables both say they would like them banned in the UK.<\/p>\n Jak Howell, a 26-year-old content creator from Swansea, has been urging his followers to stop using sunbeds since he was diagnosed with stage three advanced melanoma when he was 21, which his doctors were surprised to see in someone so young, and said was probably due to his use of sunbeds. Howell had been using sunbeds regularly since he was 15 (it has been illegal for under-18s to use tanning beds since 2010, but the ones Howell used weren\u2019t staffed. Customers bought tokens from a machine and slotted them into the beds). When a mole appeared on his back that \u201ckept bleeding and scabbing over but never healing\u201d, he sent a photograph of it to his GP and was immediately referred to hospital.<\/p>\n He underwent radiotherapy and surgeries to remove his lymph nodes, but these failed to remove the cancer. Eventually, after a year of immunotherapy, which \u201ccompletely knocks you for six\u201d, he went into remission. Howell now wants to see sunbeds banned. He tells young users: \u201cOK, it hasn\u2019t happened yet, but it could happen. And when it does happen, it is far, far worse than anything I could ever describe and you could ever imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n For many young people, though, the allure of the sunbed\u2019s \u201cinstant fix\u201d is too great to resist. And it\u2019s not as if this is the first time young people have put themselves at risk. As Kukadia points out: \u201cIf alcohol was discovered or invented now, it would be illegal.\u201d But tanning does feel different from other classic rebellious pursuits such as binge drinking, cigarettes and drugs because people don\u2019t do it for fun, but to achieve a certain aesthetic \u2013 a symptom, perhaps, of our screen-filtered lives.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t on social media, I probably wouldn\u2019t use sunbeds,\u201d Feldman admits, but because her job requires social media use, she can\u2019t see herself stopping.<\/p>\n A few years ago, Clark noticed a dark, \u201cpretty scary-looking\u201d lesion on her leg, and was referred to a dermatologist. Though it didn\u2019t turn out to be skin cancer-related, she had to have it removed, and the experience has stopped her being so \u201cfrivolous\u201d with tanning beds.<\/p>\n Urbaniak can\u2019t see herself giving up either. \u201cIf something were to go wrong, then maybe I\u2019d reconsider,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I feel as if I\u2019m in that generation where we all just live in denial until something happens.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hannah Clark got her first spray tan for her school prom and has never looked back. \u201cI\u2019m not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-320283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114977188447973099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}