This Tanning Hack Alarms Dermatologists
To attract the sun to their skin and return from vacation with a perfectly baked tan, TikTok beauty addicts are doubling down on creativity. Instead of slathering on sunscreen, an essential summer potion, they're spraying themselves with a mixture of water and salt, a UV magnet. Dermatologists, for their part, are warning against this summer practice, which imprints heat on the skin.
Water and salt, the recipe for a caramel complexion
Longtime beauty addicts take advantage of summer to perfect their complexion and transition from one skin tone to another. They flock under the blazing sun in the hopes that it will permeate every square inch of their body and leave a lasting imprint on their silhouette. To accentuate their original shade, they use every trick in the book and rely on the magic of cosmetics. They've even found a new way to go brown. How? With a natural blend that rivals any self-tanner on the market.
In their raffia bags, there's no sunscreen or exotic-scented monoi oil, but a spray bottle—usually intended for plant leaves—filled with a clear liquid. It's the latest trend on TikTok: spraying yourself with a mixture of water and salt before sunbathing. The idea? To replicate the effects of seawater, which is supposed to "attract" the rays and accelerate tanning. Thousands of beauty addicts are doing it, with evidence to back it up. Their white bikini lines against a chocolate background attest to the effectiveness of this sun elixir.
As soon as their skin has absorbed this mixture, they repeat the gesture down to the last drop. However, instead of blocking UV rays, a role that sunscreen fulfills wonderfully, this beauty cocktail attracts the rays. It acts like a suncatcher. Enough to give dermatologists cold sweats.
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https://www.tiktok.com/@carlyminnick/video/7268511999359798570
Salt water: an accelerator... of irritations
This homemade way of simulating the effects of a dip in the deep blue on your skin may seem harmless. You might think, "It's always better than commercially available chemical products." Think again. While dermatologists recommend taking an open-air shower on beaches after a salty dip in the sea , it's not for fun. It's because there's a real benefit to getting rid of the salt that seasons your skin all summer long.
While the coarse salt in our kitchens is an excellent exfoliant and adds value to foot baths, it also dries out the skin, especially when exposed to the sun. Fans of this practice get a delicious tan, of course, but also rough, crocodile-like skin, similar to desert crevices. Salt is abrasive and weakens the skin barrier. Combined with UV rays, it can intensify sunburn , cause allergic reactions, or pigment spots.
Tanned, but permanently damaged skin
If this "homemade" trick is enjoying such dazzling success, it's because it capitalizes on the obsession with an immediate healthy glow. Except that this quest for quick results is part of a persistent aesthetic pressure, which puts appearance before health. Whereas sunscreens gradually color the skin, this water-and-salt mixture leaves a brown film on the flesh after just a few hours on the deckchair.
Water, salt, and sun don't necessarily mix. In their video, the beauty addicts proudly display their distinct tan lines and present this method as a "natural and inexpensive hack." Except that behind this chocolatey complexion, artificially created with whatever means at hand, lies serious skin damage. And damage means premature skin aging, brown spots, and in the most serious cases: skin cancer.
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Tanning isn't a performance, and beauty isn't measured by skin tone. Sometimes the best thing to do is stay true to yourself... under a parasol, with a good SPF . A tan, yet another aesthetic criterion, is not an indicator of a "good vacation."
