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Tanning Booths: A Questionable Form of Acne Alternative Treatment

As a teenage girl, puberty is high on the list of things that cause stress. Stress and changing hormones cause acne. Some teenagers are lucky and get through puberty with only a few blemishes at most. Others suffer with acne that is practically disfiguring. So, many teenagers are trying to avoid acne and the regular creams by using tanning booths as their method of acne alternative treatment.

Tans Hiding Blemishes

It is funny to think that only a hundred years ago it was highly unfashionable to have a tan. Pale skin was the way to go for women, and they would hide their skin behind layers of clothing, hats, and parasols. However, with Coco Chanel making the tan fashionable, tans have become stylish and now too a popular acne alternative treatment.

This acne alternative treatment has a basis in, surprisingly, science. When exposed to sunlight, the melanin in the skin triggers the color that results in a tan. The melanin production cancels out (albeit only for a short while) the oil glands that cause acne. Any scars that have been caused by acne seem to disappear beneath a dark tan. 

It might seem to many that this acne alternative treatment is too good to be true, and indeed it is. A tan might look good, but repeated exposure to the UV rays in a tanning booth results in problems far greater than using it just as an acne alternative treatment.

For example, a teenager who decides to tan all the time will get far more than a tan, she will get an orange complexion. Basically, a tan is a sign of damaged epidermal layers. Too many teens decide that the darker their tan, the better their chances of not having their acne come back. The reality is that the acne is still there… just waiting.

Sometimes the acne is so severe that not even a tan can hide it. A frustrated teenager who decides, after a long period of tanning, that she wants to stop tanning might find increased pigmentation (a lot of freckles or moles), puffiness (especially in the eye area) wrinkles, and perhaps even skin cancer.

So, keeping all of this in mind, it is safe to say that using tanning beds is not only an unsuccessful way to combat acne, but it is also a method that can have long-term damaging consequences. Thus, a teen should go see a dermatologist to get acne-free skin.