Tanning and homemade sunscreen trends overlook what sunlight does to your skin

By Charareh Pourzand, Reader, Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Bath

After more than 30 years studying how sunlight damages skin, I find the renewed enthusiasm for deliberate tanning worrying. On social media, a trend known as “tanmaxxing” encourages people to pursue increasingly deep tans, sometimes by using UV-index forecasts to seek out the strongest sunlight and avoiding sunscreen altogether.

In the laboratory, the damage caused by ultraviolet radiation is measurable. Yet online discussions can make avoiding sunscreen sound like the healthier choice.
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