topic Re: Tanmaxxing in Community Chat

Tanmaxxing

MorningLover — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 11:14:33 GMT

Marie Claire

The viral tanning trend exposing the dangerous side of algorithm-driven beauty.

An increasingly familiar scene is playing out on TikTok: a 20-something girl slathers her body in tan-accelerating oil, then lies out in peak sun. Next, the camera zooms in on her walnut-coloured tan and the stark outline of her bikini straps.

What follows are remarks about the UV Index. “As soon as that UV Index starts hitting six and up, this is where I’m at,” says one TikToker, reclining on her sun lounger, a tub of Carroten in shot.

“I’m roasting, and I love it; I love every minute of it. I have my little book with me, I’ve got my tanning gel, I’ve got my water, my phone’s on do not disturb. Life is good, man.” While another boasts, “A little burn goes a long way.” Welcome to Gen Z’s disturbing new world of ‘tanmaxxing’.

As the name suggests, the viral trend is all about maximizing your deepest, darkest tan. It encourages you to use the UV Index, which measures the intensity of the sun’s rays, to find times when the risk of burning is highest.

Some devotees are taking the trend even further by turning to Melanotan, an unlicensed synthetic peptide that mimics the hormone that stimulates melanin production. Marketed as a shortcut to a deeper tan with less sun exposure, it carries significant health risks and has been linked to the darkening of existing moles, the appearance of new moles and freckles, and other changes in skin pigmentation.

There’s an outcry from doctors and dermatologists, who call the trend “extremely dangerous”. The premise of tanmaxxing is, after all, to shun SPF in favour of deliberately exposing the skin to UV rays at their most powerful.

“A tan is essentially your skin responding to injury,” says Dr Ahmed El Muntasar, a GP and aesthetics doctor. “When your skin is exposed to ultraviolet light, it produces more melanin (the pigment that gives skin its colour) in an attempt to protect the DNA within skin cells from further damage.”

Dr Brendan Khong, a medical and aesthetic doctor, says the long-term effects are deeply problematic. “Every deliberate tanning session, whether it’s ‘creating a base tan’ or a ‘filter-ready glow’, is banking DNA damage in skin cells,” he explains. “That damage doesn’t repair itself – it accumulates.”

It will, at best, manifest as premature aging—wrinkles, pigmentation, loss of elasticity—and, at worst, cause skin cancer.

Gen Z already knows that. Yet they’re tanmaxxing anyway.

These are the same girls who raided Sephora for Drunk Elephant’s retinol and vitamin C serums, and whose slavish following of TikTok ‘skinfluencers’ turned the likes of Hyram Yarbro into a superstar. So what’s changed?

Re: Tanmaxxing

JeanLouiseFinch — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 11:42:24 GMT

Not much new except for the social media aspect. I'm a Baby Boomer and we did it too. We were out all summer long, every afternoon at the local pool, sometimes the beach when we could drive, and using Johnson's Baby Oil, doing our best to get as dark as we possibly could. One year I used something called Swedish Tanning Secret and I got really dark. When we'd get sunburned in the beginning of summer we'd slather on the Noxema and lay ice cold washcloths all over ourselves to cool it down. Then we would blister and peel. After the initial peel of the season, we just kept getting darker and darker.

Re: Tanmaxxing

Shanus — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 11:51:08 GMT

@MorningLover I'm looking into the future even though I may not be here to see it, but a lot of older looking wrinkled ladies who baked in the sun. They may even have melanoma...hope not. Any way you look at it, it's a stupid fad and where are their mothers?

Re: Tanmaxxing

Shanus — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 11:53:41 GMT

@MorningLover Thankfully, now we know better.

*** Marie Claire is online? The magazine is gone...I loved it.

Re: Tanmaxxing

CJC — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:01:29 GMT

Young people tend to live in the moment. They don't concern themselves with the ailments of older age. Those things are for their grandparents and, of course, they themselves are immortal. I was one of those sun worshippers back in 60's-80's when there was very little warning about cancer, but my grandmother warned me about wrinkles. Didn't care....I just wanted to look good NOW.

Re: Tanmaxxing

LTT1 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:14:18 GMT

@Shanus @MorningLover @CJC @JeanLouiseFinch

Yep, me too but I was never much good at "enduring" the heat!

My friends used baby oil and next vinegar to remove the sting. I remember doing that lol!

Re: Tanmaxxing

Jackson08 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:19:38 GMT

@CJC Same here. Sometimes we added iodine to the baby oil.

Re: Tanmaxxing

on the bay — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:36:57 GMT

My sister and I did that too every summer with baby oil before it was called anything.

30 minutes laying in the sun on our backs and then 30 minutes on our stomachs, then hop in the waves, then repeat!

Our goal was to be tanned and also lose a few pounds before going back to school.

Now I make sure I go to the dermatologist every year.

Re: Tanmaxxing

FranandZoe — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:38:39 GMT

I did the same - wised up when I hit 30.

Re: Tanmaxxing

DrakesMomma — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 12:58:07 GMT

As a GenX, I never did this but I did have sunburns because sunscreen wasn't a thing in the 1970s. I have raised a GenZ child. We are very fair. I have taught him about sunblock from the time he was little. Even now if he and his friends are spending time outside in the sun he insists they wear it.

Re: Tanmaxxing

goldensrbest — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:26:49 GMT

A very bad mistake, i burned so much as a teen,i have all the sun damage at 75.

Re: Tanmaxxing

Lakelife62 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:26:49 GMT

Same old song, different choir.

I get spray tans and I'm always shocked at the number of very young people using tanning beds at the salon.

But they will learn, sometimes the hard way, like we all did. And some of us still haven't completed the lesson.

Re: Tanmaxxing

San Antonio Gal — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:27:44 GMT

@CJC wrote:
Young people tend to live in the moment. They don't concern themselves with the ailments of older age. Those things are for their grandparents and, of course, they themselves are immortal. I was one of those sun worshippers back in 60's-80's when there was very little warning about cancer, but my grandmother warned me about wrinkles. Didn't care....I just wanted to look good NOW.

When you're younger, you're invincible and you don't think about the distant future. Agree with you @CJC .

Re: Tanmaxxing

Stray — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:31:22 GMT

I was a sun worshipper & used baby oil & a reflector. I went to the Caribbean every year & got terrible sunburns with blisters. I rarely used sun block. Now, I’ve had two melanomas removed the past two years. My skin is a mess with moles & freckles & the worst on my face. I wish I had listened.

Re: Tanmaxxing

Marp — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:32:31 GMT

As a teen I lived in CT and spent hours a day at the beach eventually turning a gorgeous coppery color. No oils or lotions.

When I moved to Florida the first time at the beach for a few hours I turned into a lobster and ended up in bed for almost a week.

Lesson learned. Now sun exposure is extremely limited and never during the highest UV Index periods.

Re: Tanmaxxing

haddon9 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:36:58 GMT

Tanmaxing? Add a new name and it's suddenly a new thing!

Back in 1979 my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) rented an old fixer three story Victorian house with a huge porch at the Jersey shore with another friend for the summer. It was cheap back then (it needed a lot of work) and was on the beach block. Half a block away was the boardwalk.

There were several regulars there each weekend and one was a girl that DH worked with. She had an olive complexion and would sit out for hours each day. By mid summer she was really very dark! I wonder what she looks like today.

Re: Tanmaxxing

wagirl — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:50:43 GMT

I am guilty of the tanning to the max when I was a kid---the baby oil, the cocoa butter--all of it. I tan very easily and it looked good!!! Only burned once to the extreme where I peeled. And fortunately, at my age now--72--not any awful damage was done, at this point. Haven't done any "tanning" for decades now---Had a basal cell spot on my left lower area just under my clavical--years ago--and then a couple years ago, on my left ankle, had a squamous cell spot. I took care of those right away. When I was working in retail, there was a woman who came in to the store- as brown as a coconut every summer and thru the year too---I worked there for 12 years and little by little, her skin turned into the look of leather--was a shiny brown with very exaggerated lines in the usual places. Was not attractive at all. Thought there was serious skin cancer in her future.

Re: Tanmaxxing

Still Raining — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:18:43 GMT

The VIRAL tanning TREND exposing the DANGEROUS side of ALGORITHM -DRVEN beauty.

Can we have a few more buzzwords please? 😂

Re: Tanmaxxing

SharkE — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:50:17 GMT

I had a couple basal cell cancers removed. One on side of nose one on upper back near the hairline.

I was young and back in my day you just had to have a tan you know.

They give you a shot first to deaden the pain of removal. Then they dig down and cut out the cancer

not only removing the area, but, some margin areas below the spot and on both sides. Then they make you

wait while they look at it under a microscope to make sure the margins are clean and no cancer cells are left behind. If they missed something they go at it till they

know it's gone.

Costly. After healing leaves a white spot that won't darken. It will stay white. 1 on my nose healed fine, but, my back a big white circle that still itches today.

Now in my declining yrs. I had my car windows tinted to the extent legal in my state. Don't mow unless it's a real cloudy dark day. Wear a mask, sunhat, etc. Sunroof has never been opened.

Basal cell is the least of the skin cancers. Redheads

have the biggest risk. Tan is not worth it.

Re: Tanmaxxing

foxywoods — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:15:50 GMT

Ugh. wish I had embraced my paleness as a teen, but we lived a mile from the ocean and we baked in the backyard to look hot in our bikinis. Plus I had a freind who tanned super dark dark, she was Italian so she tanned easily. Finally wised up around age 30 and at least covered my face at the beach.