The tan over time

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Does having a tan make you more beautiful? This has been the case for a few decades, but not everywhere. And it wasn’t always like that.

The tan of Farmers, fishermen, and soldiers

Too often, having dark skin has been seen as a sign of being from a lower class or group.

Part of the reason for this was the way people lived. Farmers, fishermen and soldiers made up the majority of the population in almost all human cultures, so they were always out in the sun without any protection.

Since the ruling classes didn’t spend as much time in the sun, their skin was lighter. This became a sign of being in the artistocracy or in high social circles.

Farmers, fishermen and soldiers were more or less tanned, but their skin was often damaged and sick because they were out in the sun for long periods of time. This didn’t help the country’s image at all. When we think of Julius Caesar or King Arthur, we don’t picture a leader whose skin was burned from so many wars that it looked like an old fisherman’s skin after a whole life under the sun.

So, women who stayed at home, especially if they were in a higher social class, were protected from the sun and had fair skin. The ruling classes, such as royals, aristocrats, clergy and administrators, who worked inside, also had pale skin. Slaves, workers from lower social classes, and soldiers, on the other hand, had tanned skin.

Only recently has the way we look at subscriptions changed, because of a few new things:
A) the Industrial Revolution
B) Niels Finsen and his discovery that sunlight can also heal the skin.
C) Coco Chanel
D) The Surf

The Rise of Industry

With the Industrial Revolution come a lot of big changes in social norms, and one of these has to do with skin color. The new working classes were forced to work in factories for long hours, making them pale, thin, and crazy-looking. This was very different from the nobles, who spent their days outside doing things like horseback riding, fox hunting, croquet or golf.

A treatment for skin

In 1903 a Danish doctor named Niels Finsens finds that sunlight, or rather a part of sunlight called ultraviolet, is a good way to treat Lupus Vulgaris, a skin disease caused by Koch’s Bacillus, which is similar to Tuberculosis.

This discovery won him the Nobel Prize and led to a new way of thinking about the role of sunlight in our health, which had been thought to be only harmful before.

The example of Coco Chanel

We all know that Coco Chanel was a very unique person who, despite the difficulties of the time in which she lived and worked, was able to build an empire that is still going strong today and is a sign of elegance, good taste, and refinement.
She has been a role model many times, both for the women of her time and for many other entrepreneurs, both men and women, who have looked at how she made decisions and used her intuition.

But you may not have known that Coco Chanel also played a role in the change in how people felt about tanning. It is said that during a cruise in the summer of 1923, she accidentally got a tan from being in the sun too much. When she came back, she didn’t hide it. She was proud to show off her tan, which became a new trend.

Surf

And yes, this blessed wooden board has changed a lot of things. What an amazing way it has changed society, fashion, and habits. It changed into Skate and SnowBoard and kept changing other places and cultures.
Surfing has been around for a long time. It started with the Polynesians of Hawaii and Tahiti, but that’s not what we’re interested in.

Think instead about how popular surfing was in the 1960s and what was going on in the world at that time: the Great War had just ended, the world was getting better, and the Marshall Plan in Europe was making a big difference in the wealth of American companies. The life of an American citizen seemed to follow a perfect path: study, work, get married, have kids, retire, and go fishing.
Here, the discontent of a small but growing number of young people starts to show, and they start to look elsewhere for answers and things to do. They go to Hawaii and find the surf.

At first, they were mostly homeless people who spent the day on the beaches of Hawaii so they could ride the waves. Over time, they changed, partly assimilating but mostly incorporating the answers they had found in the Pacific waves into modern culture.

New look and style

This leads to a whole new look and style for both men and women, with tanned, slim, athletic bodies and calm, smiling faces because they are mostly free and away from the stress of the city.

So, the tan becomes a sign of freedom and independence, making up for the fact that it has been a sign of misery and restriction for hundreds of years.

Today, all of the meanings of tanning exist at the same time. People who like how it’s linked to health don’t look down on those who, on the other hand, still find beauty in having fair skin. Think about the Korean idea of what a woman should be like: would you ever picture a Korean girl in her traditional dress and a tan like a Bilboa model? That would be a contradiction, so of course not.

Tan or no tan is no longer a social status but a personal choice. We must literally feel comfortable in the “skin we wear,” and the way we look in the mirror and in the eyes of other people must please us because it shows us our path.

Is sun tanning good for everyone?

Sun tanning is a skin treatment that may be good for your body. The sun’s rays cause the skin to produce vitamin D and this helps with bone health and immune system function. There are also studies that have shown that people who get a natural tan are less likely to get skin cancer later in life.

How long do you stay in the sun to get a tan?

It is important to protect your skin from the suns UV rays, but it’s also necessary to get enough sunlight in order to produce Vitamin D. The best way to do this is by spending 15 minutes outside every day in the morning before 11 am or after 2 pm.

The amount of time it takes to obtain a great tan differs from person to person: people with dark skin tan more readily, while those with pale skin may need to be more cautious.

To avoid the most powerful sun radiation, it is best to start with a couple of hours every day before 11 a.m. and after 3 p.m. The sunscreen to wear will be stronger or weaker, for example 20 SPF for darker complexions and 50 SPF for lighter complexions.