Paulina Porizkova’s Honest Message on Fake Tanning Is Something Every Woman Needs To Hear
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Paulina Porizkova is known for using social media as a sounding board for her nuanced thoughts on beauty, aging, fashion, health, and more, and she’s always starting interesting conversations. Today, the model took to Instagram to muse on fake tanning, and specifically, why she still does it when she knows it’s perpetuating an unhealthy trend.
In the post, Porizkova poses in a bikini on the beach and uses the opportunity, and her tanned complexion, to get into the debate over fake tanning.
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“Looking tanned gives me more body confidence,” Porizkova writes, then immediately questions why that is. Porizkova’s theory is that having a tan seems to imply that someone is comfortable in their skin, “enough to let it — and everyone else — see the light of day. It feels sporty and … wholesome?” Porizkova adds, while pointing out that it’s far from healthy, as tanning increases your risk of skin cancer and speeds up visible signs of aging, per The Skin Cancer Foundation. “It’s clearly not good for your skin,” Porizkova acknowledges.
But Porizkova says she gets a spray tan — something that, while not associated with the same health risks, does feed into the idea that being tan is the ideal. “In getting the spray tan, I am putting out the message that a ‘tan’ looks better with a bikini,” Porizkova explains. “That tans are preferable to pale skin,” despite the health risks of tanning in the sun or in tanning beds or booths.
The model and author then goes on to compare the expectation of tan skin to the other ageist and fatphobic beauty standards that many of us are only just starting to question. “It is very much like the messages that your skin looks better without wrinkles, hair without grays, thighs and butts without cellulite and of only a certain circumference, that your stomach needs to be flat and scars are ugly,” she says.
It’s an astute comparison, and one that forced Porizkova — who’s known for bucking the trend of anti-aging and embracing her natural grays — to reckon with her own stance on tanning. By using a fake tanner, she writes, “I’m supporting a message which is not in line with my actual beliefs,” which are “that we need to embrace all different kinds of beauty: all colors all sizes all ages.”
But Porizkova is honest about where she’s at. Yes, she’s owning her journey in health and beauty, even documenting her recent hip replacement surgery, but in this photo, she decided to use a spray tan, and felt “pretty confident” posing for it. “I have no solution to this quandary,” she said. “I’m just letting you all know that I also ping-pong between the two poles, and hope to mostly land somewhere in the middle.”
It’s the honesty that really stands out. It’s hard to be a woman in the world, trying to love yourself as you are while also grappling with contradictory beauty standards. (Be skinny, but not too skinny! Have curves, but not too many curves!). It’s impossible to win or to please everybody. The best we can ask of each other is to think critically about the way we present ourselves and the message it sends, as Porizkova has here — and to be honest (with ourselves, at the very least) about where we are along that journey.
Before you go, read about these celebs who are sharing their health issues to raise awareness:
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