A couple of months ago a friend of mine, Aarturo* showed up for a casual game of volleyball with an unusual orange tint. I innocently asked Aarturo if he had been to the beach, and he unapologetically and unashamedly shared that the glow was due to spray tanning. Now, Aarturo is a somewhat normal, heterosexual, professional 20-something male. I was intrigued, so I inquired as to why he voluntarily stood naked in a pod while a machine showered skin dye over him. His response was something to the effect of, “Well lying in the UV bed is bad for your skin so I decided I wasn’t going to do that this year.” This response piqued my curiosity and led me to conduct my own unscientific social experiment, quizzing male friends and co-workers on the topic of fake baking. Turns out male tanning is much more prevalent than I originally would have thought. But while the guys seemed to own up to it, it always came with an excuse. “Oh my buddy owned a gym and he asked me if I wanted to test out the new tanning bed he put in.” Or, “My wife and I were going on a cruise and she suggested I go for a few sessions so I wouldn’t fry myself on the ship deck.” SSSSUUUURRRREEEE……. At least Aarturo was man enough to admit he did it because “Tan fat looks better than white fat.”
I was curious as to the sociological thought process that would drive a male to the local tanning salon, but it is important to note that I am not anti-fake-baking. I became a pro at it myself back in high school, where I would wait 45 minutes for one of five or so beds at the local hole-in-the-wall-only-one-in-a-ten-mile-radius-I-can’t-even-remember-the-name tanning salon, slap on my playboy bunny sticker, and bake for 20 minutes at a time. This continued off and on for the next 10 years or so. In college I dedicated a portion of my “entertainment allowance” to achieving that healthy glow. In post college years I tanned on, culminating in the grand finale – my high school reunion two years ago. All the while roommates and friends warned me about something called “skin cancer.” Clearly that made a huge impact on me.
(Sidenote – Aarturo would like to interject that the clearly orange tint was due to the fact that spray tan was acquired over lunch time and guidelines of showering 4-6 hours following spray tan were not followed. I will admit that within a day or so the orange tint faded and Aarturo’s skin turned to a nice shade of Panamanian-baby.)
At Palm Beach, we were each asked to provide our license (our drivers license, not our license to tan – we asked) and Reamona, Kaythleen, and I forked over $54 each for four VersaTan sessions plus an amplifier packet. Kaythleen asked for a receipt, which led to a discussion of exactly what occupations would be justified in expensing tanning services. Conclusion: strippers, hookers, and apparently ministers (though Kaythleen insisted the receipt was for her personal record keeping – RIGHT!). We were each required to submit fingerprints for identification, a task Reamona walked us through like a pro. Then our Fabulously hot tanning instructor Gaylord (this is how Reamona likes to refer to him as she wonders why all the hot tan ones are gay, noting that Aarturo is clearly the exception) walked us through the process, demonstrated the poses (The Claw, pivot to right Stop Sign/Right Egyptian, pivot to left Stop Sign/Left Egyptian, and Backward Flex – just like yoga), explained how to avoid a Ross situation, and gave instructions for follow up care for our spray-on self esteem. Reamona recalls this lecture, “I know that I can barely remember choreography for one eight count, so this demonstration paired with instructions for accelerator and blending cream instilled a little panic in this citrus-tinted non-diva.” Kaythleen remembers being terrified during this speech with so much to remember, especially when distracted by thoughts such as “Hot gay guy though…why does his fake tan look so nice, and should we invite him to volleyball?”
A couple of observations during tanning: The mist and the subsequent air dry were COLD! It’s a darn good thing we decided to tackle this project in the middle of May instead of the middle of winter. While I, due to previous mystic tanning experiences, have a habit of holding my breath throughout the entire process so as not to inhale the chemicals, Reamona took a different approach. She reported that she forgot to stop breathing when the mist covered her face, “So i'm sure my lungs are looking freshly bronzed like they just got back from Cancun. Lucky bastards.” Whoever said beauty was skin deep hasn’t seen Reamona’s lungs.'
The three of us came through the process like champs, and didn’t endure any staring or gawking the rest of the evening, leaving us to wonder whether we’d done it right. Our tanning instructor advised that we could wait to shower until the morning, so long as we weren’t worried about anything rubbing off on our sheets. Luckily my sheets are bronze already, so I slept like a baby. But when I awoke the next morning, disaster struck. The tan had set in, and I was a nice shade of California, until I saw it. “It” was a spot on my upper right thigh where the tan was literally peeling off my body. Then I noticed a second “It.” Another spot on my lower right leg. Each spot a couple of inches in diameter, each spot an ever expanding starburst of hypercolor skin.
I had been looking forward to wearing a skirt to work, but my plans quickly changed. It would have to be pants this day and every day until the VersaTan was gone. I emailed Kaythleen, Reamona, and Aarturo to report my clear malfunction. Reamona and Kaythleen had mostly positive results (Kaythleen reported some orange splotchy-ness but no peeling, Reamona’s apparently turned out perfect), and Aarturo showered me with questions and accusations (“Did you use lotion? Did the skin actually peel off? I bet it’s because you played volleyball afterwards”) and suggested I request a refund. All balked at the clearly disgusting picture of my right leg. With this peeling phenomenon demanding all my attention, I almost overlooked the splotchy-ness of the application in the areas where my skin wasn’t flaking off. If tan fat looks better than white fat, then where does multicolor fat fall?
So here I am, hiding my $15 sporadically tinted shedding skin under layers of concealing clothing, just waiting for my entire epidermis to disappear while Reamona and Kaythleen are probably sipping martinis on a patio in Uptown in Gucci sunglasses looking fabulous while discussing the latest developments in plastic surgery. Hopefully in three to five days I can join them, and I’ll look forward to my next VersaTan experience. You better believe I’m not letting the next three tans go to waste!
Finally I’d like to leave you with a quote from Reamona, who summed up our experience nicely:
“Doing stuff like this makes me think of how we scoff at old beauty rituals... like corsets or wigs or stuff like that... we do the same thing... we're just hotter.”
*Names have been changed to protect privacy
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