Young Brunette Girl Shows Off Her Tanned Body In The Studio

In the 1940s, women’s magazines started using advertisements that encouraged sun bathing. At this time, swimsuits' skin coverage began decreasing and tanning oil came out. The bikini, introduced by the French designer Louis Reard, made its appearance in 1946. In the 1950s, many people used baby oil as a method to tan more quickly. The first self-tanner came about in the same decade and was known as “Man-Tan,” and often led to undesirable orange skin. Coppertone, in 1953, brought out the little blond girl and her cocker spaniel tugging on her bathing suit bottoms on the cover of their sunscreen bottles; this is still the same advertisement they use today on their bottles of sunscreen. In the latter part of the 1950s, silver metallic UV reflectors were common to enhance one’s tan. In 1971, Mattel introduced Malibu Barbie, which had tanned skin, sunglasses, and her very own bottle of sun tanning lotion. The same decade, specifically 1978, gave rise to tanning beds and sunscreen with SPF 15. Today there are an estimated 50,000 outlets for tanning, whereas in the 1990s there were only around 10,000. The tanning business is a five-billion dollar industry.
In some other parts of the world, fair skin remains the standard of beauty. The geisha of Japan were well-known for their white painted faces, and the appeal of the bihaku (美白), or "beautiful white", ideal leads many Japanese women to avoid any form of tanning. There are exceptions to this, of course, with Japanese fashion trends such as ganguro emphasizing almost black skin. The color white is associated with purity and divinity in many Eastern religions. In India, dark skin is heavily associated with a lower class status, and some people resort to skin bleaching to achieve a skin color they view as more socially acceptable.