If we know melanoma is deadly, why do we still chase the bronze dream?
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, September 2022
I used to dream of honey-brown limbs. Sitting on the school oval at lunchtime, we’d drench our legs in sunshine in a bid for that coveted tan.
My pasty pins never made it past a light streak of strawberry pink; the polar opposite of my bronze dreams. But to our teenage minds, a tan said more than just summer. Warped beauty standards had us convinced that golden limbs were synonymous with our level of attractiveness.
I would hit the fake tan formulas far too hard in preparation for the weekend, testing varying shades of orange on my forever freckled skin. The allure of a tanning oil never seemed far away, though. They appeared to be the gateway to a “natural” tan.