Suntan? SUN TAN?

So this one time, in band camp^W^WEurope, I went to Ibiza for two weeks during september. I spent every day out in the sun, running around, swumming, drinking, dancing.. and I left with no tan. Everyone I was with, /black/. Me, and my Sicilian skin - nothing. Nada. I couldn't believe it, I was cut. I flew back to Australia a week after I got home from Ibiza and noone believed I'd been in Spain for two weeks. I didn't have the tan to show for it.

Meh to tanning. What do I have to do, go to 120,000 feet and remove my shirt?

Remember, to get a tan you need to actually see the sun.

Knowing Ibiza as the island of summer night parties, I can understand you didn't ever got to see the sun, happens to a lot of people who go there

I used to live in Italy and be out in the sun all day with no sunblock and never get burnt at all, but my family all did unless they wore suncream.

I live in Barcelona, near the beach, all day, never get sunburn. I only need sunscreen on the mountain or when I am going to actually be all day under the sun (tourism, beach napping).

Europe is cool!

Hah. Bout the only time I went inside was after dark, or to go to the toilet. I'm an Australian who was living in Europe, not an English tourist there for sex and partying. Although..

I've heard that it is.

Believe it or not, SPF 75 isn't that much better than SPF15. It is more or less a scam to make you pay more.

Evidence?

( I believe you, I'd just like to know how/why..)

My mother is a dematologist so she likes to share random trivia with her nerdy pre-med son from time to time. Anyhoo, I found this to explain it:



I realize this isn't a research article, but there are several out there you can look up to verify this.

I think I've got -everyone- beat with how badly I was sunburned, first of all I looked like a brightly cooked lobster, on like 40% of my body. arms, legs, face. My High School had this thing called Imagine day, where we were supposed to show pride in our school, it was near the end of the year, no classes that day, fun activities in the morning for like 2 hours, and then 6 hours of fun in the sun, outside in the football arena. Local bands played music, other activities happened, and so forth.

9am-3pm out in the sun, without any sun-tan lotion, no shade at all, running around, and I really didn't have any tan at all built up that year either.

1 day later, sitting downstairs on my parents bed all day, doing nothing, because any movement sent me into extreme pain. just laying there, that was mild constant pain, just enough to bear without screaming, and laughing silently to myself, at how I looked like a lobster.

Bah! I know for good that some of my very spanish and not at all english family spend there at least 2 weeks per summer season (probably for sex and parties and the coolness factor). Poor english tourists taking all the blame! Besides... Ibiza is too expensive for them, they go to the cheaper Catalonia southern coast full of hotels, and cheap drinks, and drunken tourists like them with whom they can speak in their native language Ibiza is just too posh, cool and all those things

And congratulations on your skin, must be really resistent to the sun At least you don't need to carry around sun cream all day like I had to do in Menorca (sibling island to Ibiza, with less discos and better beaches )

It's horrible, my dad, he uses like SPF .5 or something, some type of tanning oil, me? I just burn, if I don't perfectly regiment my time in the sun.

Well, I hardly ever get burn (at most, I get a golden colour, so not real tan either) provided I am not in the desert or trying to emule a lizard in a beach for hours.

My mother and sister get burnt just by knowing the sun is out there It's quite a pain when they smell all day of suncream in summer

Australia's sun is the meanest. Its partially because of where we are in relation to that hole in the ozone layer, the rest of it is because we live in a harsh harsh land that is still the most awesome place on earth.

About a million years ago when I was in college, I went to a gay pride parade in Washington, DC with some friends on a very hot day. All of us used sunscreen except one friend who was a woman of color with very dark skin. Late in the day, she started freaking out that she needed to be taken to the emergency room because she was having hot flashes, was feeling sick and dizzy, and had a tingling sensation over her skin. Of course, it turned out to be a mild sunburn--but she had never experienced one in her life! It was amusing to see her surprise as she realized how painful a sunburn can be.

Just goes to show that everyone should wear sunscreen!

Senior year in high school, I went on a band trip to Wildwood, NJ. At 9:00 or so, we got up for a role call, then went right to the amusement piers. I thought I'd be able to go back to the room before we went out to put sun tan lotion on, but we didn't. Oops. At about one, I was fried, then borrowed a friend's sun tan lotion and put it on then. Didn't really help much. That night I got to sleep on a sleeping bag on the floor with a terrible sun burn. I don't mind pain as much as itching, as I said before, but I could feel every fiber of my sleeping bag on my neck and arms. At least I was smarter then some of my friends and wore a shirt

Heh that sounds more like heatstroke; sunburn's cousin and partner in crime.

Yarr! Band camp! My band is a pansy band and we had our summer practices at night.

Sounds dangerous

All this talk of sunburn is upsetting to us poor Brits. As per usual, we are experiencing non-stop rain, clouds, rain, clouds, rain, drizzle, clouds, and a bit of mist. Then some more rain. I'm getting so damn wet cycling to and from lectures that it feels like I've always been damp. Like I'm some kind of human-frog. Or slug. I HATE RAIN, and you're all adding insult to injury by getting SUNBURN. Frankly, I'm more likely to catch MILDEW on my back than sunburn.