I finally have decided to try a tanning bed…
As you can see by my Casper like appearance, it is well overdue.
My question is, do tanning accelerating lotions actually work?
They are supposed to contain “special ingredients that stimulate melanin production, such as Tyrosine”
Don’t lay in the tanning bed with nothing on your skin…thats bad news. If this is your first time doing it, don’t buy an accelerator with the “tingly” or “hot” sensation. This may prevent you from ever going back, cause it does make you really hot. Accelerators are like any other product, you get what you pay for…so spend a few extra dollars to get one that will actually work. If you don’t, you’re not going to have the same results.
two words for you…
skin cancer
The best bet for an accelerator is simply to pop a bunch of L-tyrosine capsules the morning before you go. I don’t think tyrosine works topically, but it certainly does work. Power Drive has 3000 mg per serving. (No, I don’t work for Biotest.)
if you haven’t tried L-tyrosine before, you might get a tiny pleasnat buzz if you take a lot all at once suddenly.
You might also try a tiny bit of supplemental copper too, but be careful, since copper is a pro-oxidant. Only use it when you tan and then sparingly. (I use copper maybe once a month.)
The beds tend to dry out your skin, so use a moisturizer.
Finally, and this is VERY important, start out very slowly. Use only half the maximum time in the bed at first until you get a tan going. DO NOT GET BURNT. If the salon tries to offer you the max time right up front, or they don’t ask how long you want for your session, find a new salon.
I could never tan at all until a friend opened a salon. I tried it, liked the “high” I got from the vitamin D, did a lot of research on MedLine on safety and such, and now everybody remarks how tanned I am.
I was going to write a rebuttal (with MedLine references) for all the people who yell “skin cancer” but why bother? They’ll believe what they want to. The fact is, you have to balance the risks against the many benefits of UV exposure, and do everything in moderation, tanning included.
[quote]yorik wrote:
The best bet for an accelerator is simply to pop a bunch of L-tyrosine capsules the morning before you go. I don’t think tyrosine works topically, but it certainly does work. Power Drive has 3000 mg per serving. (No, I don’t work for Biotest.)
if you haven’t tried L-tyrosine before, you might get a tiny pleasnat buzz if you take a lot all at once suddenly.
You might also try a tiny bit of supplemental copper too, but be careful, since copper is a pro-oxidant. Only use it when you tan and then sparingly. (I use copper maybe once a month.)
The beds tend to dry out your skin, so use a moisturizer.
Finally, and this is VERY important, start out very slowly. Use only half the maximum time in the bed at first until you get a tan going. DO NOT GET BURNT. If the salon tries to offer you the max time right up front, or they don’t ask how long you want for your session, find a new salon.
I could never tan at all until a friend opened a salon. I tried it, liked the “high” I got from the vitamin D, did a lot of research on MedLine on safety and such, and now everybody remarks how tanned I am.
I was going to write a rebuttal (with MedLine references) for all the people who yell “skin cancer” but why bother? They’ll believe what they want to. The fact is, you have to balance the risks against the many benefits of UV exposure, and do everything in moderation, tanning included.[/quote]
I whole heartedly agree. Up in the frozen north tanning salons become a winter ritual. I find not only do I look better, but I feel better as well. It’s excellent treatment for seasonal affective disorder (basically the winter blues)
Also noted above, start slow. Your perfectly safe if you go about it very slowly, the first week or two you should only notice the slightest browning of your skin. I generally go once every 2nd day for the first two weeks to get a good base, VERY gradually working up the time, then after this I’ll go 2-3 per week to maintain.
[quote]Jillybop wrote:
two words for you…
skin cancer
[/quote]
I agree, tanning salons are a health hazard.
I think UV exposure is the new “fat”.
Remember when fat was bad and fat would kill you? Anybody who said there were good kinds of fat were heretics. Then we found out through research that certain fats are good, even essential, and the problems we thought were from fat were more complex problems only slightly related to fat.
Well, UV exposure is going to be the same. In a few years people will be slapping themselves on the head, saying “What were we thinking? Stay out of the sun? We were crazy!”
Everything in moderation.
I go and lay under the bulbs now and again, and I do use the lotion stuff. I think it does work personally. never tried L-Tyrosine, but I will soon for the hell of it since it is cheap.
Word of caution issued to me by the girls that work at the place i go: don’t go back to back days. its bad as you give yourself no time to “recover”. Their words.
I likened it to doing heavy bench or squat two days in a row. A no-no.
[quote]CaptainLogic wrote:
Jillybop wrote:
two words for you…
skin cancer
I agree, tanning salons are a health hazard.[/quote]
Thanks mom, but tanning in the sun is just as much as a “hazard” as a bed. Drinking too much milk is a hazzard too.
I’m sorry, but IMO, unless you’re preparing for a bodybuilding contest, any guy who lays in a tanning bed is a a monstrous douche. If it’s warm outside, go outside with your shirt off. If it’s winter, buy a self-tanner that doesn’t turn you orange. I just hate tanning beds…
I heard a radio commercial today by a tanning salon trying to advocate the use of their tanning beds in order to obtain your Vitamin D for the day…
Last I checked, it takes about 15-30 seconds of sunlight for your body to produce it’s daily Vitamin D, but I need to go lay in your cancer-bed for 30 minutes to get it?
What a bunch of crooks, tanning parlors are on par with cigarette companies in my mind.
If I’m going to get skin cancer, it’s going to be from having fun outside in the summer, not from laying in some stupid contraption that 3000 other skanky ass people have put their nasty oiled up naked asses into before me…
“Tanning” once a week has shown to have some pretty big benefits. I dont tan (sometimes in the summer with my very attractive golfers/farmers tan) but I know its not that bad so long as its…DONE IN MODERATION.
Its the people that over do it that give it a bad name…hey just… like… everything… else!
Tanning is for metros. Every tanned guy I see at the gym is a total cock sipper. Sure, they look more defined because of the tanning, but they also look like self-absorbed jackasses. Plus, 90% of them look like eliteballa3.
It’s pretty obvious when someone tans here in Alberta, Canada… they’re the only people who are orange! IMO, tanning is one step away from manicures and eyebrow waxing.