Sunless Tanning Lotion

The History of Sunless Tanning Lotion

Face it, most of us don’t like reading a bunch of facts about the history of anything, but it might entertain you while you’re waiting for your sunless tanning lotion to dry. Besides this information should convince you that your doing the best thing for your body by using a lotion that does not require you to bake in the sun for hours on end causing wrinkles and worse yet the dreaded ‘C’ word – skin cancer. So, how did you get that nifty little product of a tanning lotion that lets you get a beautiful color every summer through sunless tanning?


Doctors, Fashion and Accident

The tanning crazy in the United States began way back in the 1920s, when women looked fully dressed when they began to wade onto to the beaches! Also, at that time doctors were beginning to prescribe sun therapy for everything from communicable diseases to stress.

The trend setters in fashion contributed to your bottle of sunless tanning lotion too because “Coco” Chanel showed up after vacationing on the French Riviera with a glow of a tan, and of course accident played its part when those guys known as scientists noticed their hands were darker after dropping some dihydroxyacetone or DHA. Sounds a little techie you think, but basically DHA is an active ingredient that comes from different vegetables, and when it’s refined and applied to your skins outer layer which has lots of dead skin cells, you get a tan. It’s hard to imagine that the millions of bottles of lotions for sunless tanning being bought today began because of doctors, fashion, and accident.


The Love of Sun, Men and a Movie

For the sun worshippers, trend followers and health conscious crowd things continued on course until General Electric produced a home tanning lamp in 1946. WWII was drawing to a close, and it was logical. Women wanted to look good for all those boys returning home, and the ole production lines needed to be filled with other things besides tanks and guns.

Guns aside, and love in the air people headed to the beach and back yard with baby and baby oil in hand in the early 1950s. Scientific discoveries, streamlined production, and advertising helped Coppertone push its way into the American psyche along with the ever popular UV reflectors in the late 50s. Popular beach movies like Gidget did its part too in helping you hold that sunless tanning lotion that you have in your hand today.


The First Sunless Tanning Lotion – A Flop and a Success!

Time marched on into the 1960s and presto, the first lotion for sunless tanning was on the market! However, it was needless to say – a flop. Many companies rushed to production on the first sunless tanning product, but research was still needed because of the lack of quality.

Pools, backyards, and beaches along with cocoa butter worked for a while, but technology for the development of a sunless lotion for tanning lay very quiet for over twenty years because of competition with the tanning bed phenomena – until the decade of the 1990s. Through research a very ingenious man perfected the liquid form of DHA and finally the new industry of sunless tanning and liquid lotions had arrived.



Collateral Damage: Health and Beauty

Sad as it is to say the effects of the love for the outdoor suns rays along with the tanning bed craze, began showing up in the medical statistics around the world in the form of skin cancer. Sixty years of tanning gave a little backbone to the new medical information, and the beauty industry let us know too that damaging superficial effects were the direct cause of consistent sun exposure.

It’s likely that you know of someone that has had some form of cancer removed, and maybe have even seen the effects of skin damage in someone you know. Today thank goodness tan worshippers have the option because of sunless tanning lotions!


Sunless Tanning Lotions – Stranger than Fiction

Well there you have it in a nutshell the historical facts about sunless tanning beginning with an accident and ending with a lotion. No longer do you need to look like Casper the Ghost, or to risk your health and beauty to do it.

The hot lotions on the market today give you the option for taking in the sun sunless in a much healthier way with lotions applied right in the coolness of your home or apartment. Funny isn’t it. History is stranger than fiction and it wasn’t to boring either. Besides it gave you a little entertainment while waiting on your sunless tanning lotion. Enjoy!

About the Author

Tina Watts is a work at home college educated mom with one child, and currently investigating the option of a full time writing career.  She is a new contributor to http://tanning-beds-n-tanning-lotions.com.