Is there no skin cancer in Italy? I'm amazed at how dark people let themselves get. I realize that some of it is tanning cream but we were just at the beach and clearly lots of it is from baking in the sun. Just makes your skin leathery over time. What gives?

-Sada Sat
-www.yogaborgo.com

How about that some like the way it looks...and just because you are dark does not necessarily mean skin cancer....

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Originally posted by Sada Sat:
Is there no skin cancer in Italy? I'm amazed at how dark people let themselves get. I realize that some of it is tanning cream but we were just at the beach and clearly lots of it is from baking in the sun. Just makes your skin leathery over time. What gives?

-Sada Sat
-www.yogaborgo.com

I would tend to agree that it's a problem for the skin in many ways, but then my wife's nearly 90 year old aunt still spends at least a month at the beach and looks great for her age. Vitamin D is great for the bones and heart, the sun is the best source. A lot depends on skin type, mine hates the sun. And I do see a lot of Italian woman fairly young whose faces look much older, sun damage I believe.

Going to the beach doesn't seem so bad, but tanning beds? Much more dangerous to get irradiated with all that UV energy, just for the sake of an all-winter tan.
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...html?hpid=sec-health

quote:

Is there no skin cancer in Italy? I'm amazed at how dark people let themselves get. I realize that some of it is tanning cream but we were just at the beach and clearly lots of it is from baking in the sun. Just makes your skin leathery over time. What gives?

I think it looks gross, personally, but I am sure other people think I look pale and gross... I have always thought the same thing about the leathery skin and wondered how people here in Italy seem to avoid skin cancer (special genes, more melanin in their skin ??). Another cultural mystery that may just remain unsolved forever in the eyes of many foreigners!

Italians aren't immune to skin cancer. The incidence rate is lower than in northern Europe, but the mortality rate is higher than northern Europe, and accelerating (whereas the mortality rate rise in northern Europe is decelerating).
See http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/annonc;15/1/5

Yeah, I don´t get it either, a little tan usually does ¨look¨ healthy, but some women go so dark that in my opinion it doesn´t look attractive any more, just makes them look almost roasted.

And it can´t be good for their complexions over the long term. I find that once they´re over forty, most Italians tend to look much older, and I bet its all those hours spent in the sun.

Its an advantage for me though, since Italians usually think I´m much younger than I am, and are generally shocked when I tell them I´m in my mid-forties.

I hate the handbag look too. A little tan is nice, but too much (think Donatella Versace) is not nice.

Here in Ascoli Piceno the centro storico is a ghost town on Sundays as everyone vacates to the beach and then return for the evening passeggiata to show off their tans. When we lived in Anzio some friends asked why we acted like "blondies" and put on sunscreen and didn't spend all day in the sun.

After 20 years in New Mexico we had it hammered into our heads about skin cancer so we still take the slow approach to any tan. Personally we prefer some time in the cool mountains to sweating on the beach.

I guess I am confused here...are we talking tans or leathery skin...not the same thing at least nt for me...i am originally from fla and have been tanning myself(in the sun only) for many many years...i use caution and high spf lotions...don't overdo it in my opinion...i do not have leathery skin and NOONE ever believes I am over 60....

I think that tanning has a lot of reasons:
1) means you are rich because you can go on holiday very often (sunbeds are a trick to "look like if..")
2) you look thinner when you are darker
3) you look different from usual. If you have light eyes the tan will highlight them

I see a lot of people that as temperature gets around 22°C tends to lay wherever/whenever they can to get tanned. This can be in their garden, on the side of a smelly river, on the seaside,...

I don't like suntan signs and I find suntan as an inevitable and not welcome consequence to sun exposition. I go to the beach to enjoy the water, the smell of air and *incidentally* get some sun. I have a fairy complexion and am more inclined to the philosophy "mi scotto ma non mi abbronzo". I am not interested in getting the grilled fish look and I fear skin cancer, so I wear SPF 50+++ (plus, I develope freckles all over).

I don't think my skin is genetically equipped to bear too much sun.
Sunburnt look all year long is *so* gross. Donatella Versace is alreagy ugly of her own, but also Valentino is terribly ridicolous!
Same for Emilio Fede, Carlo Conti,...

From one of those sporting a fairly dark tan:
if you spend a lot of time at the beach, i.e. go for a swim every day, sit in the sun to dry off, etc. you are going to get tan, with or w/o sunscreen, and particularly if you have an olive complexion to begin with.
For many Italians, at least in my neck of the woods, but also in Versilia (I lived near there for many years), the beach is not just about tanning but it is also a social scene. At my "bagno" we spend hours chatting, moving from one umbrella to the next, going for drinks, ice creams, etc. and swimming. Most weekends we are at the beach from 9-10 a.m. until sundown. Same thing goes for the younger generation who congregates on the 5 meters of free beach in front of the umbrellas...same kids year in and year out. But they are not all just sitting around "frying". The result of this is generally a dark tan.
Can't speak for the mid-winter tans from tanning salons, I avoid those...

All I can say is the beach can be great for girl watching with so many trying to tan nearly every inch of their bodies.

Seems a bit like smoking, people don't think about the bad side affects until it's too late.

My wife does look better with a bit of tan but I insist she use sun screen especially on her face. Luckily for her she has never liked to bake in the sun and at 40 something she looks much younger.

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are we talking tans or leathery skin

I was talking about those super dark tans that often accompanies early wrinkling and leathery skin.

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Originally posted by JoanSi:
I guess I am confused here...are we talking tans or leathery skin...not the same thing at least nt for me...i am originally from fla and have been tanning myself(in the sun only) for many many years...i use caution and high spf lotions...don't overdo it in my opinion...i do not have leathery skin and NOONE ever believes I am over 60....

Pics please!

I grew up with a lot of Italian Americans so the Italians here overall do not look that dark too me. Plus I'm black so it's all relative.

I agree that Donatella is a little over the top but my Italian friends all use sun block. Then again they also smoke, drink wine with lunch and have the nerve to take vacations instead of working 24/7!

Jenna where are you from? The dark tans might not lead to leathery skin if one is dark to begin with and wears sun bloc. I have a friend from Milan who's parents are Sicilian. He does not lay out to get a tan or go to tanning salons. Just from being out in the sun going to work, jogging etc. he's darker than most anglo-saxons. He also looks younger.

I grew up around Italians and I am Italian American, and ever since I was little I've ALWAYS gotten dark in the sun with or without sunscreen. I have olive skin.. but actually, I'm the palest one in my family.

Tanning in the sun for a while is ok; I just don't like tanning beds. But if you're out at the beach with or without sunblock, you're probably going to get some tan anyway.

Plus, I think people look better with a tan.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ricciolina,

I am referring to the people that look like roasted chickens. Literally. They look wrinkled and leathery to me. Not just the normal tan people.
I am originally from Berkeley, California. We have the whole rainbow spectrum! Also, been living off and on in Italy since 1995, and I have seen many roasted chicken Italians and I am STILL not used to it!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Bill 2:

quote:

Originally posted by JoanSi:
I guess I am confused here...are we talking tans or leathery skin...not the same thing at least nt for me...i am originally from fla and have been tanning myself(in the sun only) for many many years...i use caution and high spf lotions...don't overdo it in my opinion...i do not have leathery skin and NOONE ever believes I am over 60....

Pics please!

send an email address and I will gladly send you a pic...I am way too shy to post one here

quote:

Originally posted by Bill 2:
Italians aren't immune to skin cancer. The incidence rate is lower than in northern Europe, but the mortality rate is higher than northern Europe, and accelerating (whereas the mortality rate rise in northern Europe is decelerating).
See http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/annonc;15/1/5

Bill2, thank you for this info. this is partly what i've been curious about. Cultural choices of what looks good are one thing, whatever my opinion may be (!).
also interesting that perhaps a lot of folks haven't associated that leather look with overly tanned skin year after year?

I've always tanned easily, rarely burn, but decades ago i learned to slather on the sunscreen and now i'm glad i did!

-Sada Sat
-www.yogaborgo.com