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Claire Rosenberger
Dr. Lyn Freymiller
CAS 137H
30 October 2014
The Ivory Age and the Bronze Age
Bronzed, baked, and sun-kissed skin are staples of the modern beauty standard for white
women. The pervasiveness of the tanning trend can be seen in the droves of teenagers who dash
to the salon before prom, the hordes of pageant queens who swarm to the tanning bed before
their next important competition, and the commonness of women, and even men, to bask in the
summer sun’s rays in order to obtain an alluring glow. Tanned skin has reigned over the beauty
industry for decades, but before tanning became popular, pale complexions exemplified the
beauty standards of the Ancient, Renaissance, and Victorian eras. Tanning became more
attractive by 1930 with revolutions in medical advice, social roles, and fashion trends. After the
1930s shift in skin color popularity, tanning dominated the beauty field as the preferred skin tone
for decades. The suntan’s supremacy went unchallenged as the accepted beauty and medical
standard until the 1980s, when dermatologists emphasized the unhealthy side effects of tanning.
While the fight against injurious tanning habits began in the 1980s, the prevalence of the ideal
tanned skin tone continues to overshadow objections. Although tanning does not as sharply
influence society today, people still perceive tanned skin as healthy and attractive. Perceptions
of skin tone transformed from pale skin domination, to tanned skin’s sovereignty, to the more
cautious approach to tanning that exists today.
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THE REIGN OF THE PORCELAIN COMPLEXION: PRE-1890
While tanned skin exists as a recognized beauty standard in modern society, tanning did not
always permeate the realm of elegance; prior to the twentieth century, a pale complexion was
considered to be the epitome of attractiveness. Pale skin was considered attractive because it
symbolized wealth. Lower class laborers had tanned complexions because they spent their time
outside working in the fields. Members of the upper class distinguished themselves from the
tanned lower class by maintaining a porcelain complexion, which flaunted their freedom to stay
indoors and announced their ability to dedicate time and money to their appearance (“Body
Modification & Body Image”). As far into the past as thousands of years ago, Ancient Egyptians
strived for pale complexions. The Egyptian wealthy, including Princess Nofret, used make-up
composed of yellow ochre along with powders and creams made of myrrh and frankincense to
whiten their complexions (Sarnoff). During the Middle Ages, the upper class wore protective
sunscreens made from violet and rose oils to protect their skin from sun damage when they were
outside (Sarnoff). Until the late 1800s, women used deadly lead, arsenic, and mercury based
skin whiteners to lighten their complexions (Segrave 8). Women carried parasols, wore hats, and
donned gloves to protect their white skin from the sun in the Victorian Era (“Body Modification
& Body Image”). The quest for a pale complexion, starting thousands of years ago and enduring
until the Victorian Era, was fueled by the desire of upper class citizens to distinguish themselves
from poor laborers.
THE SHIFT IN OPINION: 1890-1930
Pale skin eventually faded out of favor by the 1930s. However, the shift in popularity
from white skin to tan skin took place over the span of decades from 1890 to 1920. The
transition from pale skin to tan skin occurred over this long span of time because many people
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were reluctant to relinquish their entrenched pale standards of beauty (Segrave 6). Pale skin lost
its appeal due to the recommendations of medical professionals, the transformation in society,
and the changes of the fashion industry.
In the 1890s, doctors began to claim that sunbathing provided numerous health benefits.
Their opinions were circulated through scores of journalists, who spread the doctors’ ideas to the
general public (Segrave 4). Medical professionals recommended sun exposure for many
different diseases and for general health. In particular, doctors began to prescribe sun therapy, or
heliotherapy, as a treatment for tuberculosis (Segrave 13). At this time, tuberculosis was the
second leading cause of death in the United States. Many social elites, nearly the only ones able
to afford the time and leisure to undertake this treatment, followed the medical advice, leading to
an increase in trips to sundrenched destinations (Palmer). By the start of World War I, the
majority of physicians recommended sun tanning for its supposed rejuvenating and medically
restorative properties (Segrave 14). While doctors were broadcasting the sun’s medical benefits
as early as the late 1800s, heliotherapy did not gain widespread popularity until the 1920s
(Segrave 26). Soon, even people without tuberculosis were traveling in search of the sun to reap
its other health benefits. Women and men exposed themselves to the sun all day at the beach,
and they even subjected children and infants to the same treatment (Segrave 10).
Social change in the late 1800s also affected the shift in popularity from skin whitening
to skin tanning. Near the end of the Nineteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution transformed
the locations of employment for the majority of workers. Menial laborers began working
indoors instead of outside in the fields. With this shift in working location, the association
between paleness and wealth decreased (Segrave 9). The tan became a symbol of wealth,
showing that the bearer had enough money to spend their leisure time outside or had sufficient
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funds to go on vacation (“Body Modification & Body Image”). In addition, the outdoor sports of
polo, tennis, and golf were becoming more popular with the wealthy class, so possessing tanned
skin created the perception that one was affluent enough to enjoy these hobbies (Segrave 9).
Certain events in the fashion industry, in combination with the social change occurring
during this time and the medical recommendations from the health field, increased the popularity
of tanned skin for women. In the late 1920s, eminent fashion designer Coco Chanel popularized
the tan by returning to the fashion scene from her vacation in Southern France with a tan. Her
bronzed skin attracted attention, and since she was a respected and renowned designer of
women’s fashions, her new look inspired women around the world to tan their own skin
(Palmer). Fashion magazines intensified the popularity of tanned skin. In 1929, Vogue
magazine proclaimed “‘The 1929 girl must be tan’” (Segrave 33). Fashion icons and notable
fashion magazines of the time facilitated the shift in preferences from pale skin to tan skin.
Tanned skin became associated with the wealth, as it symbolized the money to travel and
the time to dedicate to laying outdoors. In addition, the tan was associated with health because it
was considered to be a cure for many ailments; it was also associated with health because it
suggested that one practiced physical activity. The combination of medical advice, social
transformations, and altered fashion trends revolutionized long-held standards of beauty and
shifted the ideal complexion from pale and white to a tanned, darker look.
AN ERA DOMINATED BY TANNING: 1930-1980
In the era where suntanned skin became the unchallenged archetype of beauty, the sun tanning
industry invented products and processes that allowed people to obtain a tan in a variety of ways.
The tanning oil industry emerged at the beginning of the tanning era. With the increased number
of people trying to maintain a tan, incidences of sunburn surged. As a result, companies and
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pioneering entrepreneurs, including Eugene Schueller, founder of L’Oreal, attempted to create a
product that could prevent sunburn but would not affect the ability to obtain a sun tan (Sarnoff).
Cocoa butter became a popular sun tan lotion in the early 1960s, replacing its predecessor, baby
oil (“The History of the Suntan”). The first UV tanning bed was invented in 1978, introducing a
new way to tan and giving people more options on how to obtain a desirable glow (Sarnoff).
The invention of various products in the tanning age promoted the perception of tanning as a
healthy, desirable activity and enabled people to achieve a tan in a variety of fashions.
A CHANGING OPINION: 1980-PRESENT
While the popularity of tanned skin went mostly unchallenged from the 1930s to the 1980s,
concerns regarding the side effects of tanning did exist in this era. Several doctors raised
medical concerns about the consequences of tanning, but their worries were overlooked in favor
of the more popular perception that tanned skin represented health and attractiveness (Segrave
59). The objections against sun tanning intensified and became notable with the advent of 1980
(Segrave 63). Around this time, articles in prominent newspapers and magazines, such as the
New York Times, the Consumers’ Research Magazine, Newsweek, and Time, savagely attacked
sun tanning. They rarely incorporated any minute praise for the sun; instead, they endorsed total
sun avoidance and sponsored copious amounts of sunscreen use (Segrave 64). The 1980s also
witnessed the widespread observation that increased exposure to ultraviolet rays correlated to
incidences of both non-fatal squamos cell skin cancer and basal-cell cancer and deadly
melanoma (Segrave 65). Modern technologies have proven the 1980s supposition that
overexposure to ultraviolet radiaton triggers almost ninety percent of skin cancers (Sarnoff). In
addition, science today shows that overexposure to the sun can result in eye damage, immune
system suppression, wrinkles, leathery skin, and brown spots. The increased understanding of
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the health risks of sun exposure have contributed to changing opinions on sunbathing as a
healthy activity (Sarnoff).
Although the dangerous side effects of sun tanning are well-established, most people still
desire to appear tan and associate tanned skin with health. Therefore, when discussing the
horrible effects of tanning, most officials are more likely to mention tanning alternatives than
they are to promote pale complexions (De Castella). The shifting perception from tanning as a
healthy activity to a dangerous one has expanded the fake tanning industry (Segrave 74). Fake
tanners such as bronzing lotions and spray tans, which provide a tan without exposure to the sun,
have become popular, safer alternatives to lying out in the sun or going to tanning beds (De
Castella).
CONCLUSION
Prior to the 1890s, pale skin and porcelain complexions embodied the beauty standards of
Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Victorian women. Opinions about skin tone started to shift
in the 1890s and continued to adapt into the 1920s to favor a tanned complexion. The shift
ended in 1930, and until the 1980s, tan skin became the uncontested beauty ideal. Objections to
tanning began in the early 1980s when doctors illuminated the health risks of tanning, and health
concerns dull the persistent idolatry of tan skin that remains today. When the desire for pale
complexions governed the minds of many women, they used deadly concoctions to whiten their
complexions, all the while striving for the beauty standard of the time. Now, women still
endanger themselves by following the new beauty trend of tanning; melanoma is the most
common cancer of women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-two. Tanning increases
the risks of contracting melanoma (“Tanning and Melanoma Facts”). In two contradictory eras,
women’s desire to obtain the current standard of beauty causes sickness and fatalities. Whether
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those fatalities arise from a bottle of lead-based skin whitener or the malignant tumors of
melanoma, they occur because fashion is placed above health. What will be the next major style
craze? While it is difficult to predict what craze will next sweep the nation, if history repeats
itself, then the next trend will trigger the same extreme, deadly patterns.
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Works Cited
Segrave, Kerry. Suntanning in 20th Century America. McFarland & Company: Jefferson, North
Carolina, 2005. Print.
“Body Modification & Body Image.” Bradley.edu. Bradley University, n.d. Web. 22 Oct.
2014. <http://www.bradley.edu/sites/bodyproject/disability/modification/>
Palmer, Brian. “When Did Tanned Skin Become Fashionable?” Slate.com. The Slate Group,
n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/
2012/10/romney_s_spray_tan_when_did_white_people_start_deliberately
_tanning_themselves.html>
De Castella, Tom. “Fake Tan: How did it Become the New Normal?” Bbc.co.uk. BBC News
Magazine, 7 Sept. 2011. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
magazine-14801688>
Sarnoff, Deborah M., MD. “The Tale of Tanning: From Pale to Bronze and Back Again.”
Skincaner.org. The Skin Cancer Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
< http://www.skincancer.org/prevention/tanning/tale-of-tanning>
“The History of the Suntan.” Suntan.com. Suntan.com, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.
< http://www.suntan.com/?factshistory>
“Tanning and Melanoma Facts.” Mnfe.org. Melanoma Foundation New England, n.d. Web. 23
Oct. 2014. < http://mfne.org/learn-about-melanoma/tanning-and-melanoma-facts/>