I never would have expected this from the tech gurus over at Wired , but the magazine has deciphered the ingredient list of L‘Oral Sublime Bronze self-tanner ($7.81). It‘s interesting stuff, if only to see what all of those tongue-twisting chemical names really do. For instance:
Dihydroxy Acetone : The star of the show. This carbohydrate reacts with the skin‘s amino acids, like arginine, in what chefs call the Maillard reaction (it‘s what makes cooked foods turn brown). Heat this stuff to body temperature and it produces brown polymers known as melanoidins that bind to the outer layer of the skin (and no deeper).
So that‘s how it works. And did you know that the same silicone compound that goes into Silly Putty goes into this lotion? I‘m oddly fascinated by this parsing of the label. Are you?
Speaking of self-tanner , you might get a kick out of this Chicago Tribune column . Writer Heidi Stevens says she dreads midsummer more than any other time of year because of the expectation to use self-tanner:
“There used to be a perfectly good excuse for looking so-so. Pasty legs meant you had (a) a day job; (b) a predilection for sunscreen; or (c) little use for lounging around on the weekends, working on your tan. Or all of the above.
Now they just mean you‘re too lazy to walk to Walgreens and buy sunless tanning lotion. Or spray-on pantyhose. Or some other quick fix for your various and sundry leg flaws.“
She goes on to say that the ante‘s been upped in the game of looking good, pointing out that our “options have never been so plentiful, so accessible, so encouraged.“ In a way I understand what she‘s saying, but when I see pale-legged people in the summer, I just assume that they‘re cool with having fair skin. (Of course, as the empress of pasty-leg land, I may be biased.) What do you think? Do you agree that midsummer is the worst?
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