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Burn, Baby, Burn

Polly Wanna Carcinoma? Despite American Medical Association warnings, people and parrots are flocking to tanning parlors for that healthy, sun-kissed glow. Big mistake!

Pasty white Americans doing the fake 'n' bake swell the tanning salon industry coffers by a hot, crisp $400 million every year

By July St. James

They turn your skin into shoe leather, potentially cause melanoma, and charge big bucks for what Californians get free about 300 days a year. But go figure--tanning salons continue to pop up around town like, well, suspicious skin growths.

A drive about the county reveals at least a half-dozen of these businesses--the newest one opening in Capitola around this time last year. Within two months, reported its manager, they were booking between 180 to 200 appointments a day.

Tanning salons--or "fake 'n' bakes"--make perfect sense in Southern California, a region slavishly devoted to looks. But we're talking about booming business in a town that has so many ugly-by-choice people that city officials had to pass a city ordinance protecting them. To further complicate the picture, the tanned look is supposed to be passé--witness the pale countenance of celebrities like Madonna, Sharon Stone and Michael Jackson.

So what drives normally sane-thinking people to shell out five bucks a pop to grease up and slide into a giant ultraviolet weenie bun? If you think I'm being too harsh on these bronzed lemmings, it's confession time--I'm one of them.

And frankly, there's no excuse.

I have no movie career to further, I'm not trying to clear up a troublesome case of acne, and I certainly don't enjoy where my mind takes me once I'm locked inside that glowing cylinder. What if the Big One hits just as I've dozed off? Weeks later, they'll dig through the rubble and pry that clamshell apart to reveal a shriveled raisinette where I once lay, a troubling testament to the dangers of overexposure.

Some believe it is the fantasy we are buying. The walls of every tanning salon are plastered with posters of scantily clad, long-legged beauties who glow with sun-kissed health. Further, virtually every salon is staffed by 17-year-old hardbodies who are a walking advertisement for that richly tanned appearance.

Unfortunately, this look does not translate well to those over 35. Anybody wishing further evidence of this need only travel to Palm Springs and check out those who have been happily baking away for the last few decades. Add a brass clasp where their mouth is and they'd pass for an alligator purse.

Nope, the truth is, it's a religious experience. See, the Mahareshi Yogi recommends 20 minutes as the optimum amount of time spent practicing transcendental meditation. And guess how long they recommend you spend in your Day-glo coffin? Twenty minutes! If that's not cosmic, I'll eat my mantra.

Of course, if in the process of reaching spiritual enlightenment we also end up looking like the long-legged poster ladies, things could be worse. Unfortunately, the American Medical Association is convinced we will look not like the poster ladies but the poster children--for skin cancer.

The Humiliation of Moon-Slivers

The AMA has had its panties in a twist over sun beds for years. The good docs insist that those who indulge in fake 'n' bakes are seven times more likely to develop melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. But the tanning bigwigs are not daunted. They just keep shrugging their shoulders and saying there's no scientific evidence. Hey, if denial works for the tobacco industry, it ought to work for them.

That this industry continues to profit in the face of such adverse publicity is odder than the Mystery Spot, more inexplicable than the Winchester Mystery House. And grow it does. According to its mouthpiece organization, the Suntanning Association for Education (SAFE--get it?), the tanning salon industry enjoyed a 52 percent growth over the previous year and is estimated to be a roughly $400 million-a-year business. That doesn't factor in, of course, dermatology and oncology fees.

If the C-word and premature aging weren't enough to deal a serious body blow to the industry, the latest smear to its reputation should have. It didn't take long for some clever entrepreneur to figure out a more profitable way to utilize a business that allows customers access to several small, private rooms for a limited amount of time. Hence, the latest front for prostitution. Although this has not apparently caught on yet in Santa Cruz, its illicit popularity has swept through most neighboring counties and across the country, displacing massage parlors as the front of choice.

Like smoking cigarettes and eating too many hot fudge sundaes, there's no way to justify this fast track to liver spots and wrinkles. And at least smoking and eating feels good at the time. What makes this a true religious experience is the suffering required.

There are few less pleasant experiences than slowly melting in a pool of your own sweat, then squishing like a giant plunger when trying to unsuction your back from the glass surface. Add to that the humiliation of "moon-slivers," as we call them, the thumbnails of non-tanned flesh accidentally trapped beneath the folds of less than rock-hard buttocks.

Finally, this religion not only requires devotion, suffering and penance, but--just like Oral Roberts' Jesus--is money hungry, too. Besides the half-a-sawbuck entrance fee, there are the must-have lotions, potions and creams. Forget your $2.99 Coppertone, this is the land of Helix Private Reserve, a six-ounce bottle of tanning lotion that will set you back $49.99. Fortunately, for the acolytes who have taken a vow of poverty, there is Maui Magic or Aztec Glow, at a more reasonable $12 to $15.

You stick with your faith, I'll go with mine. Besides, we, too, have a Mecca. Palm Springs, anyone?

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