Tan feet

If you've hung around here for even a little while, you know that I love the beach. So much so that when the opportunity arose, Spouse & I moved to the beach.

During the warm months I try to go to the beach every weekend. You might think I'd have a nice, golden tan with all that time spent at the beach, but I am naturally very pale. I could spend spend every day at the beach and still never get a "golden tan". But I am less pale now than during the winter months. In fact, for me, I do have a tan. I just don't look tan when compared to most others.

My friends are always shocked and alarmed to see me use Coppertone sun lotion with SPF 8. They think I'll burn terribly and should use SPF 30 or 50. Even Spouse occasionally says this, after 14 years. But I remind them that I have used Coppertone SPF 8 for years and do not get burned. They look at me incredulously and so I say "Look at me. Do I look burned? I've been using this all summer."

Something that recently surprised me is that my feet are getting tan. Not that I'm striving for tan feet. (I don't go to the beach for the purpose of getting tan.) I put Coppertone of the tops of my feet because they will burn without any SPF. But for what seems like the 1st time ever, my feet are actually getting a tan.

To be sure they weren't just dirty (eww), I scrubbed my feet with a loofah in the shower. But my feet are actually tan and not dirty, thank goodness.

Speaking of tan and dirty, have you ever seen those people who are so tan that they look dirty? I do believe there is such a thing as too tan. When you are so dark brown that you look dirty, you've gone too far.

I saw a guy meet up with some friends in early May who was so dark brown he looked dirty. His friends, who apparently had not seen him in a while, asked how he could be so tan already, when it was only early May. He struggled and finally said "I was putting a new roof on a house and the sun was pretty intense." I shook my head and thought to myself "Nobody gets that tan this early in the season from working on a roof." I'm quite sure he just overdid it with the sunless tanning products.

There's nothing wrong with sunless tanners, but if its early May then you should go easy on them at first. Give it some time; work up to that super-tan, dirty look.

Crush du Jour: Daniel Villa