The Complete Handbook of Tanning Oil & Lotion

Chapter 1: Understanding Tanning Oil & Lotion

The skin's relationship with sunlight is one of constant negotiation. We seek its warmth and vitamin D, yet we are aware of its potential for damage. Tanning oils and lotions are the products designed to mediate that interaction - not to block it entirely, but to manage the rate and the outcome of the process. To understand them truly, you must strip away the marketing imagery of beaches and sunsets and look at them as what they are: The active ingredients in them are oils, humectants, UV filters, and occasionally pigments and chemical accelerators, all suspended in a delivery base that determines how you apply them.

The core function of any tanning product is to alter the relationship between human skin and ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The skin's response to UV is a biological process called melanogenesis. When UVB rays penetrate the epidermis, they cause damage to the DNA of the skin cells. This damage actives a repair mechanism, and one of the by-products of that repair is the production of melanin, the pigment that colors the skin. This pigment is then brought to the surface of the skin to protect the deeper layers from future damage. This is a natural defense mechanism.

A tanning oil or lotion does not fundamentally change this biological process. What it does is change the conditions under which the process happens. There are two general strategies that these products employ:

• Facilitation: The product provides a medium that is