Why women are rethinking their pursuit of the perfect summer tan

All Lindsey Hall wanted to be when she was younger was tan. At 15, she was lying in a tanning bed for 20 minutes a day. “It was really the heyday of tanning beds,” Hall, now 36, tells Yahoo. “It was like the thing to do.”

She never wore sunscreen, despite her mom’s begging her to. When a friend in their group “would always be harping on about sunscreen usage,” Hall and her other pals would get annoyed. Now she says her behavior and her resistance to sun protection “is awful to think about.”

“There was almost like a narrative that it was cheesy to put on sunscreen. Like, what was the point of even sunbathing if you were going to put on sunscreen?” Hall says. “But the conversations are different now. The last sunburn I got was actually embarrassing.”

Sunburns are something Amanda Golka knows well. Growing up, the 27-year-old would dodge her parents as they chased her around with sun protection as a kid. Sunscreen was thick, sticky and a nuisance to put on — but she needed it. “I am very pale and burn so easily,” she tells Yahoo. As a child, however, she didn’t really care about the red hue that her complexion would take on after a day on her uncle’s boat.

These days, Golka still burns easily, but she’s much more serious about protecting her skin. Case in point: After experiencing an “atrocious sunburn” while attending the Long Beach Grand Prix in April, she wrote a piece on her Substack urging brands to provide sunscreen at sporting events. In her essay, Golka shared how her more recent burns made her feel like a “bad adult.”

Hall and Golka are both part of a generation of young women who are reexamining their relationship with the sun and seeing sunburns not as a step in the right sun-kissed direction (it’ll fade into a tan!) but as something to be ashamed of — a You should have known better moment, if you will.

It’s not universal, mind you. There are still plenty of people getting scorched amid a wave of misinformation about sunscreen and influencers like Nara Smith whipping up their own homemade (and, dermatologists say, ineffective) versions. A survey conducted last year found that 14% of U.S. adults under 35 think daily sunscreen use is more harmful to the skin than sun exposure, and nearly a quarter think drinking plenty of water prevents a burn. When reality star Kristin Cavallari — who has previously admitted to not wearing sunscreen — acknowledged her roasted appearance in an Instagram post this March (“I’m fully aware of the burn, you don’t have to tell me,” she wrote), it kicked off a heated debate in her comments section about the merits of sunscreen.

By and large, however, experts tell Yahoo that conversations around sun care have evolved for the better, thanks in part, they say, to an anti-aging culture that doesn’t want to deal with the consequences (wrinkles, sun spots) of tanning. Ahead, women open up about how they started seeing the light — and stopped seeing red.

The rise (and fall) of tanning at all costs

Having a tan wasn’t always in vogue; for centuries, paleness had prestige, and being sun-kissed implied that you (gasp) toiled outdoors. That all changed in the early 20th century under the influence of industrialization and Coco Chanel. The fashion designer’s sporty, burnished aesthetic is credited with transforming a nice bronze into a status symbol; something only those who could afford a trip to, say, the South of France could afford. While beauty trends have come and gone, tans have been covetable (and sunburns inevitable) ever since.

By the time Dr. Tonie Reincke, 55, was growing up, people would do whatever it took — even layering on baby oil and iodine — to get a deep tan. “I came from the era when people were putting QT lotion on,” Reincke, now an interventional radiologist, tells Yahoo. “I would get super, super dark and thought it was really cool. Having those lines where your bathing suit was, you’d come back from trips and be like, ‘Look at me.’ Those were your bragging rights.”

Tanning beds, which the World Health Organization classified as carcinogenic in 2009, also took off, along with misguided perceptions of the supposed benefits of a “base tan.” A 2012 study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that college students reported feeling healthier and more attractive when tanned. And while not much has changed on that front — the 2024 survey cited above found that nearly a third of Americans say people look “better and healthier” with a tan — a better understanding of the harmful effects of UV rays; the rise of sunless tanning creams, mists and gels; and a new appreciation for flawless, youthful-looking skin have, over the years, helped us move away from the tan-at-any-cost thinking.

Dr. Kathryn Celeste Durham, a dermatologist with US Dermatology Partners Fort Worth, in Texas, says the focus on anti-aging is what’s made the biggest difference in sun health today. “Looking younger is better, not looking tan,” she tells Yahoo. “In the past, it was tan. But now we see that people want to be young and stay looking young, and I tell people all the time that sunscreen is your first line of defense.”

It also helps that “the experience of using sunscreen has changed drastically,” she adds. “People think of physical sunblocks as zinc on your nose. … Now we have these beautiful, cosmetically elegant sunscreens that we can use every day as part of our daily routine to help protect us from the sun.”

Demand for international (particularly Korean) sunscreen and the growth of the U.S. sun care market — complete with fun new formulations — show that, for all the misinformation about sunscreen out there right now, folks are still eager to slather it on.

The aging factor

Despite the confidence boost many people report getting from a tan, Hall says that the after-effects of years of severe sun exposure have had a negative effect on her self-esteem — and skin. “Suddenly, I looked in the mirror and started looking at my legs and my arms, and I just had so many white spots,” she says of surveying sun damage on her skin. “I was horrified, honestly, that I was only 32.”

She visited a dermatologist, who confirmed that Hall had a lot of sun damage for her age. Hall worried about skin cancer, but that’s not what motivated her to take her skin health more seriously, she admits. It was her aging appearance.

Golka was in college when she started making sunscreen a habit. “The effects on my face were so drastic that I basically aged backward,” she says. “I kind of always thought that the lines on my face were just how my face was. But, no, that was the sun. That was me not taking care of my face.”

Feeling the burn — and the shame

Hall has drastically changed her relationship with the sun. “I don’t want to sit out in the sun anymore, I don’t want to roast my skin,” she says. “I’ve paid so much money trying to get my skin healthier.” But she let her guard down one hot day last year while visiting Guatapé, Colombia (she lives part-time in Medellin), resulting in a sunburn she’ll never forget.

After lounging by the pool for two hours, Hall was so badly burned that boils surfaced on her skin. “It was embarrassing because I felt like a lot of people were saying something to me the rest of the trip, like, ‘Oh my God, did you not wear sunscreen?’ It almost made me feel like I was ignorant or stupid or not smart or not in the know,” she says. “I’ve spent tons of money on my skin and wearing sunscreen, but I just forgot. … It feels ignorant to be getting that burnt at 34.”

Reincke felt similarly when she experienced a sunburn at a medical convention in Miami this April. “Imagine my embarrassment when I woke up from a beach nap covered in red, itchy bumps,” she says. “It was completely unintentional, but the aftermath felt like a neon sign pointing out my mistake. My skin was blotchy and uncomfortable, and I couldn’t help but feel judged, especially knowing that I should have known better. Patients trust me to educate them on protecting their skin, yet here I was, looking like I ignored my own advice.”

The experience was painful, and “humbling,” the doctor says. Golka can relate.

“It’s more embarrassing for myself [to get burned] because I’m 27 years old,” she says. “I know there are implications of long-term sun damage and the worst-case scenarios with melanoma and everything like that.”

Burns will eventually fade, but it’s hard to shake the shame. Says Golka: “I feel like I failed at adulting.”