What the Folk!

Ooh, I have some disastrous highlight-it-yourself stories.....I tried using at-home highlights once and apparently my dark blonde hair has some red tones in it, because I ended up with ORANGE streaks in my hair.

Most hair colors go to red before they get to blonde which is why you need a stong bleach. I did at home highlights a few years ago and they are still in my hair, I like them a lot. When the red color fades out they show up. Remember Sun In? Do they still make that? When I was young I used to spray that on and sit in the sun and it gave the most natural white blonde highlights around the face.

hahaha SUN IN! Oh man, where I grew up EVERYONE used Sun In. I used to joke that all the moms in my town got the same diet pills and the same bottle of Sun In when they moved in. And then by Jr. High all of their daughters used the Sun In. And truth be told it does give very sun kissed looking highlights almost more so than going to the salon. This is the same town where mothers let their daughters skip school to lay out and get a tan.

Alas, I was totally untanable and a red head with no desire to be blond.

I was the freckled, get-a-sunburn-every-summer-with-blisters girl, which is why I go to the dermatologist every six months. (to catch the first signs of melanoma )

Sun In was big with the kids when I was in high school.
So was the incredibly healthy method of tanning - iodine and baby oil!!! Talk about frying! I never used Sun In, I was a dark brunette. I only fried with the iodine mixture a couple of times, and I finally gave up sunning altogether. Oh well....it was fun while we were ignorant.

My mom used to use iodine and baby oil.....I'm such a baby when it comes to sunburn, I can't even imagine what that burn must have felt like.

Sometimes I've I've been in the sun regularly for many days in a row with #50 sunblock, my freckles will sort of melt together a tiny bit and I can fool people into thinking that I have a psudo- tan hahahahahahaha. I grew up at the beach and you just HAD to have a tan. My mother tried to make sure that I was bathed in sunblock all the time but my brother and I(he's arguably more fair than I) got our fair share of blisters, sun poisoning, turning purple, getting the chills all the fun symptons of having major sun damage.

My mom grew up on the same beach and everyone in her family has a bit of melanoma because they didn't really have proper sunblock when she was a kid. It's sort of a regular thing that they have to have spots burned off and such, but luckily nothing major, just typical sun damage.

My boyfriend is black I just PRAY that our children even get a quarter of his skin pigment and don't have to deal with the sun sensitivity that I have. I can literally get a sunburn inside of 5 minutes.

And as for fake bake? No chance, I've tried some of the really good sunless tanning lotions over the years an I just turn out kind of mottled like a leopard. It's not pretty. Every summer, I feel a bit embarrassed that my legs are so glow in the dark white, but alas, that's how God intends it.

My WORST sunburn story - I fell asleep under a sunlamp for about an hour one evening. I woke up, said uh oh , and slathered moisturizer on and fell asleep, hoping it wouldn't be too bad. It was bad!
When I woke up, the hairs on my face were killing me because they were touching the pillow. My face literally looked like the alien in Close Encounters of the Third Kind!
But that wasn't the worst: I had literally grown a third boob in the center of my chest, a blister!

It was really awful at the time, it hurt like hell, but I can laugh about it now.

I'm really fair but used to lay in the sun like everyone else back in the day. One young summer I was super devoted to the task and achieved a tan so dark and miraculous (for my coloring) that my mom took lots of pictures of my bronzeness just to prove it was possible. The weird thing is I only seem to tan on the front! The back of me is immune to the sun, I didn't even burn so I used self tanners on the back to not look so freakish. I've used a self tanner the last few years in the summer coz my legs and arms are so white as to be blinding. The effect is good for a few days then bad for a few days (as it starts to flake off and I look freckled.) I think if you want a dark tan self tanners aren't the way to go coz you'll only turn orange if you apply it alot. But if you just want a subtle, healthy glow in lieu of blinding whiteness they're good.

Oh man, that's bad. Onetime my cousin was studying and fell asleep in the sun. Then she lateer put on a spandex swimsuit and practiced her diving. When she took her swin suit off the top two layers of skin came off with it and she had to go to the ER. Baaaad.

Nancy- The Third boob must have been attractive :D:D:D

I spent some time in the Cote Azure when I was a teenager and came home with the most beautiful deep dark bronze- ok it was a really more of a warm buff color but it was the darkest I'd ever been in my life.

She Wolf- I tried the self tanners for just a very very light warm tan and that's when I ended up all mottled. Is there one that you would suggest. Oh, I'm also allergic to everything, so maybe that's it, the hypoallergenic ones don't work. I used an Aveno most recently I think.

I never burned with I was younger, but I hated laying out. When I did, I only stayed out for 15-20 min and I used straight baby oil. I lived on the Gulf Coast so it's not far at all to a beach. A crappy beach but a beach none the less. I tanned really easy back then, even though I'm Scandinavian(naturally blonde/fair skin). Then I hit my 30's and everything changed. Now, I have two colors- burnt or pale/ruddy.

The best bottle "tan" I've found is Jergens Natural Glow. I use the one for fair skin. It's a very subtle tanning effect, so you don't end up streaky or patchy, but you still get a nice glow. This is great in the dead of winter when I start feeling translusent. Also, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg like the others do!

tvld- My aunt insists that she didn't ever get a sunburn until after she had children. It must be a body chemistry thing like yours sounds like. I'd never heard that before though other than her.

That's what I use. I had pretty good success with it, in that it didn't make me look jaundice...

Yes I recommend the Jergens natural glow too. It doesn't smell bad and made my skin super soft. I also had success with one of the Banana Boat lotions which made me a darker color than the Jergens. I tried a Neurogena spray foam that was good too. As I said before the trouble seems to be when they fade and you get splotchy or sometimes if you apply too much in one place you get yellowy. But I have an Oil of Olay astringent that was good for removing the yellow bits.

Oh, Nancy! That is awful! I'm sending you retroactive ice packs and aloe vera, my love.

And no! No sunlamps, you guys! Bad! Bad dog! I know y'all know this now, but I'll still say it, because it is so important: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE, HEALTHY TAN. Discolouration of the skin is a sign of damage to the epidermis. Exposure to the sun is good for us (lotsa vitamin D, ya know), but if you're getting any kind of pinkness or colour, you need to cover up. And melanin in your skin does not prevent you from burning, either, you hear? People with darker skin may not tan as obviously as paler folks, but they get cancer just the same as anybody else. Slap some sunscreen on it, beautiful girls!

[/end motherly public service broadcast]

Personally, with my pallid, English skin, I can't be in the sun for more than ten minutes without burning. Curses! The sun, it hurts ussssss.

There are lots of things they don't tell us until after it happens! After 30, it starts with the little things, you may not even realize at first. It's harder to recover after a night of carousing, wrinkles appear overnight, etc... Then it's a all down hill from there. Ask your mom/aunt/doctor about bladder control. Getting older sucks!!!