Not only do we get darker , but we get darker faster due to have thicker melanocytes (cells that produce melanin). So darker skinned people tan much much faster actually
I had a dark skinned friend in elementary school who would have a tan line from sitting with her legs crossed outside for a few minutes.
Meanwhile I can spend the entire summer outdoors constantly and get mayyyybe half a shade darker. It's crazy. Growing up in Texas I was constantly ridiculed for not having a tan
I used to get the cutest freckles as a kid when I was out in the sun, and I didn't burn as much.. Now as an adult, I lost the freckles, and gained the burn.. Growing up sucks for so many reasons.
I get darker quick when I am in the sun for a few minutes. Then after a few hours, my skin goes back to normal. But of course, the longer I’m out there, it stays.
Yes this is the answer. I can get a flip flop "tan" from a 15 min walk, but it will fade quickly. I can go the the beach or just outdoors for a week in the summer and that tan will last for months, slowly start to fade, but maybe like 15% will stay and roll over into next summer.
So I'd say obviously we get darker in the sun. Like everyone else, for the most part it doesn't last forever. Some of it lingers. I have photos from my childhood where I was significantly darker than I am now 20yrs later.
But yes, we can be in the direct sun for 10min and have a perceptible tan line.
This is legit interesting. Have twins and one is darker than the other.
The darker skinned twin will get to her "final summer form" after an afternoon in the sun, where her lighter skinned brother will take a month with the same amount of exposure.
I tan in seconds. My darkest tan was after a week in Turks and Caicos. I’ve never been that dark since — but it was a beautiful tan. I looked like a different person.
So yes, we tan to the extreme. I spent a day on the beach in July and still have tan lines from that.
I’m super white Tanning is not a thing my skin knows how to do. A salesperson at Sephora once tried to convince me that I needed the Ivory foundation I was buying, but that I should get a shade or two darker too, “for summer”.
I spend lots of time outside, but I wear hats, hang out in the shade and slather on the sunscreen.
My people!
Same here. If I’m not careful, I get burnt, walk around lobster coloured for a few days and then it peels and I’m just as white as I was pre-sunburn, but undoubtedly with some new, fun sun damage.
That maybe explains why my feet do tan, while the rest of me does not. I wear sandals far into the fall and start wearing them early in the spring, so my feet get the most exposure to UVA/UVB. They don’t get dark, but it’s tan for me - you can see the whiter parts where sandal straps go!
I’m so sorry this is completely not relevant but you just reminded me of one summer where we worked outdoors all day for a festival and we saw that my coworker had a gnarly tan on his feet by day’s end. Turned out later it was just dirt. 😂
When I was in the army, I noticed that my hands and face, after 4 years, had a very distinct tan line (to me). My very obviously doctors-office-wall white skin had a line on the wrists where it turned a "bottle of cream with a shot of espresso poured in" almost not pale white.
I am a very pale person who "doesn't tan." I worked as a lifeguard for several summers. I wore SPF 50+ religiously, sought out shade and wore hats whenever I could. I still BURNED. By the end of the summer I would be tanner than I started, but it was really only noticeable if you could see my super white tan lines. Most of my colleagues only needed a day or two in the sun for a similar tan.
I haven't had even a hint of a tan since I left that job, because I really does take weeks of constant sun exposure to convince my skin to make more than a few freckles worth of melanin.
As a former roofer I can confirm that all humans basically work this way. You have to get as much as that spring sun as possible and you can handle the summer just fine.
I learned this also from the one summer I managed to tan. I had an easy job with more free time than I had ever had before and spent it all outside hiking or swimming in rivers. It was probably the only time in my life I wasn't Vitamin D deficient in some way as well. But definitely the consistent exposure meant the difference between lobster/pink and actually tan. Still looked a little strange on my naturally pale exterior but I was psyched at the time.
I love when people act like all you have to do is get sunburned and that turns into a tan — even if it was true what an I supposed to do, let every inch of skin get sunburned so it’s even?
I don’t have tan lines, I have freckle disparities. I worked outside in Florida for years. I was extremely diligent with sunscreen application, so I never burned but you can still see where the straps on my shirt were. I also have a freckle tramp stamp on my lower back, because my shirt would ride up.
My father is not diligent regarding sunscreen, despite being a ginger kid who lived in Florida his whole life. The freckles have become one now. He looks tan from a distance. He is just one freckle at this point.
I'm not black but I follow black makeup creators because a lot of their 'brown girl friendly' advice works way better for me as 1/4 Mexican (more purple in my blushes was a LIFESAVER). One girl gets harassed EVERY WINTER for 'bleaching her skin' because she gets lighter and it annoys me so much. Straight up harassment every single year smh.
Yup. My mediterranean skin doesn't just tan a lot, it also gets a healthy green glow going. It's almost impossible to shop for here in Germany so I just don't use foundation in summer but I have two different shades of concealers. Can't even imagine how hard it is to find deeper complexion products here.
olive skin 😔 im the same way, my mom has olive undertones but she's tan so she can buy makeup. but im olive AND pale- i have to mix in green concealer to my foundation. check out r/fairolives
I have what's called an olive skin tone. Basically all humans have beige-ish brownish skin but that skin can lean into different colours from the pigment in different layers of the skin. Warm toned people will lean more towards red and orange, cool tones people will lean more towards pink and blue. Olive toned people have some blue undertones but they also have some yellow to their skin so they end up looking greenish-grayish. And the more I tan the more yellow my skin produces.
It's not even particularly rare, a lot of middle eastern, South Asian and South/South East European People have Olive undertones.
As a dark skinned Nigerian American, I do get even darker in strong sunlight.
_"EDIT: Why did this get upvoted so much? Is this such a huge shock to non-black people?"_
My dad is Nigerian and he gets darker in the sun. I remember like 10 years ago I joined my parents on a vacation in Tahiti and my dad had a classic dad aqua socks and teeshirt tan line. And then I got horribly sun burned. (My mom is white so I don’t have as much melanin as my dad. It’s usually enough but not for all day out in the sun at the Equator.)
ETA I don’t think curiosity is racist. But like it’s annoying if you just go up to a random black person and ask a question like this. So that’s why I like this subreddit.
> But like it’s annoying if you just go up to a random black person and ask a question like this. So that’s why I like this subreddit.
That's because you're essentially only asking "volunteers"on this subreddit. If someone wants to answer, they will. If they want to ignore the post completely, they can. But if you go up to a random black person and ask them completely out of the blue "hey does your skin get darker in the summer?" you're forcing them to interact with you whether they want to or not.
I read in a forum once that it isn’t polite to ask your black acquaintances either because they aren’t your ‘touchstone’ to black culture (which I fully understand and feel is reasonable). I have been too nervous to ask questions like this since.
Yea I think in my desire to be more accepting and learn more about other cultures (black, gays, etc) I failed to understand context and timing are key…
Just because a bunch of people are enjoying themselves at the drag show, doesn’t mean they want to explain and placate to heterosexual males.. Now I just leave everyone alone and respect their space.
Seems like you have the right strategy now!
This is one reason I love the internet - there are so many content creators that put out YouTube videos about their own cultural experiences, and you get to learn from someone who is already on board with sharing that info!
It took me too long to realize this. I honestly just was trying to learn and be accepting, truly coming from a place of love and intent to understand. I really missed the mark sometimes. :(
Ugh! I just got terrible sunburn for the first time in my life this year. I actually started to think it wasn’t possible. My dad is North African but pretty dark, my mom is Black American but very fair, so my sisters and I are kinda medium-brown. Usually, I just tan really well, but I went to Central America over the summer and was peeling for a week.
So yes, Black people do get darker, and we also get sunburn
Superman is extremely reactive to pretty much all forms of radiation. In many instances in the comics, especially after a major fight, he would be found floating in space bathing in the solar radiation to "recharge" which is part of how he would be invincible, and allow him to heal super quickly in the rare instances he took real damage. Kryptonite is radioactive, and the green kryptonite specifically emits a radiation that weakens and pretty much "poisons" and can kill him. Blue kryptonite radiation will simply nullify his powers, allowing him to live like a normal human. In a crossover comic with Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan uses his ability to change the radiation he emits to match the radiation of kryptonite, allowing him to make easy work of Superman.
The reason why Kryptonians get power from our sun is because their home planet had a red sun, which are generally older and larger than yellow suns like ours. I don't know if this is still correct in DC continuity, but up until the 1980s if Superman was operating under a blue sun or a white dwarf sun, he would be even more powerful. And a regular human under a white dwarf would have powers equal to Superman under a yellow sun.
[Um, Actually...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtMM2c__sfw) Gold kryptonite nullifies Superman's powers. Blue kryptonite only works on Bizarros, but the exact effect on them varies by era, and it normally has no effect on Kryptonians. Blue kryptonite nullifying his powers was a thing in Smallville, but not the comics.
Blue Kryptonite did nullify his powers at various points, most of them indeed inspired by Smallville, but they did appear in comics. Throughout the years, though, many colors of Kryptonite have appeared, and their effects on him have varied from issue to issue.
Yeah I have Greek on one side, red headed Welsh on the other, I feel like it's a biannually thing, I burn one year and then tan the next haha, or I get both. Just as long as I remember to reapply sunscreen after 3-4 hrs I won't burn.
Have you ever got an actual sunburn? Or just darker?
Im white and went in to get a haircut once and my barber asked me so many questions about my sunburn and what it was like
I am medium skinned African and get so much darker in the summer, like Somali people dark and I loved it. I went from light chocolate dark to pure ebony. I didn’t think I could get sunburnt but I spent 21 days in Maui a few years ago . After going out all the time and doing activities in the sun and me not wearing sunscreen, my white boyfriend who wore sunscreen got sunburnt like the next day. When we were leaving, I realized that my shoulders in the back of my neck was peeling. That is my only example of getting sunburn I’ve had. So yea, we do get sunburnt but most likely need continuous exposure for a long period of time for that to happen.
Peeling is not sunburn, sunburn is painful. For a mild case, you’d just notice the pain in the shower, more serious cases clothing would be painful to wear clothes and it would feel hot to touch. It’s possible you didn’t burn, but black people can absolutely get sunburned, especially somewhere like Maui in the summer.
Further, while skin cancer rates are much lower for black people, for a confluence of reasons, statistically they are detected much later in black people and are much more likely to be deadly at that point. I agree daily SPF likely isn’t necessary for black people, if you’re gonna be in the sun at a relatively low latitude like Maui during the summer, you should be wearing sunscreen between 9am-3pm.
Dark black skin is the equivalent of 12-15 SPF for the record, 30SPF is recommended for the beach at least.
Skin is so weird. My good army buddy is half black, half Mexican, way darker than I am in the middle of winter.
In the summer? For whatever reason that dude burns when we’re at the range and I’m always just getting a nice tan. By end of summer you can’t tell the back of our necks apart
*we both attempt to use sunscreen, we just run out at some point.
** I’m white with Sicilian heritage.
I asked my black teacher once in math class once
"Do black people get tanned?"
He stopped the lesson
"That's an excellent question, Stain"
He took off his wedding ring and showed us an obvious tan line on his ring finger
Then He started telling us stories about his time living in Africa before he moved to Canada
He was pretty cool guy. Wicked smart
>Why did this get upvoted so much? Is this such a huge shock to non-black people?
It's one of those things that you think about maybe once passingly as like a dumb kid, never think about for 10+ years, and then this guy suddenly brings it up, you go oh yeah I used to wonder about that, and you experience a bit of retroactive joy at being slightly less dumb than you used to be.
Well it is difficult for caucasians to ask these kinds of questions, for fear of being called ignorant or possibly racist. So yes some people have no clue, and just want to know.
As a pasty skinned ginger that turns into a lobster the second I step outside this blew me away. I have always been afraid to ask because I didn’t want to come off as disrespectful or racist in some way. Thank you for answering the question I have always asked myself.
Light skin was a mutation to increase vitamin D production in climates with less sunlight. Dark skinned people can develop strong vitamin D deficiency in mild climates. Solution? Surprisingly, tanning salons.
Edit: Also, darker skin means more melanin, which (partly) protects you from the harmful UV radiation.
I have an autoimmune disease and can't go into the sun much so I developed a vitamin D deficiency. I just take the supplement oil (D vital) every 2 weeks. No risk to my skin.
I do the same! Vitiligo?
I do go out in the sun, I just make sure my white spots are covered in SPF sunscreen if I stay for more than 30 minutes outside
Would it be more accurate to say - lighter skin was a mutation that was naturally selected in climates with lower sunlight. People with that gene were more likely to live long enough to reproduce. The mutation didn’t happen with the intention to increase vitamin D content, it was totally random.
Not as much as people think.
Firstly the darkest skinned people have the equivalent of SPF 13 protection. Not enough for high levels of sun exposure.
Secondly that protection only really protects from UVB rays (which cause sunburn) but not from UVA rays (which penetrate deeper and can cause cancer and skin damage). So they might not be obviously burning but there's still long term risk and damage happening.
Black people should still wear at least SPF 30.
Melanoma IS racist.
> age-adjusted melanoma incidence per 100,000 persons was 22.6 for EA compared with 1.0, 1.4, 3.1, and 4.7 for AA, A/PI, NA, and LA, respectively
https://scmsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Vol28_i2-Melanoma.pdf
EA = European American, A/PI = Asian/Pacific Islander. It’s more than a 10-fold difference.
Your bf should still wear sunscreen if he’s going to be in the sun for hours, but day to day, probably not, if he never gets sunburned.
That data was from America. Studies done elsewhere would obviously drop the -American. And categorize populations differently e.g. not lump Japanese with Indians under “Asian”.
Also black and other dark skinned people die from skin cancer because it isn’t noticed (many doctors aren’t well trained to spot it on darker skin) and the myth that they don’t get skin cancer
/soapbox
Yes, I am white and I know this. But I also grew up and live around black people.
Black people can get tan lines and farmer's tans just like white people.
I didn't grow up around black ppl and I would never assume they don't tan in the sun lmao skin is all the same, if you expose it to sun it'll produce more melanin. I don't know about ppl with albinism though, they might only burn
I’m Middle Eastern and have medium olive skin (nw40 is my Mac foundation shade) and a white girl at work was shaken to the core to find out I could tan lol
Lol I don't get why people think skin colour would be like static unless youre pale
Edit worded weird - I don't get why people would think pale skin can darken from sun but that dark skin would somehow be static
Im a white dude but my sister is mixed race - we get some funny looks when we say we're brother/sister as she's very dark naturally anyways. In the summer she's much much darker and I look even whiter in comparison.
I've since stopped waving to her/her friends if I see her out and about as they mainly say "....whos that white guy?"
Thanks for asking.
I've been told a bunch of times that black people get sunburnt but I used to work at a preschool with a "lather sunscreen on every kid before they go outside" policy and I asked a black kid's mom if she was going to bring in sunscreen for him and she looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world for asking before telling me her kid doesn't need sunscreen. I still don't know the real answer.
Ya, technically, sure. But black people are at a risk of about 1/30 of white people for melanoma.
Black people have significantly higher levels of melanin which offers natural protection.
It's deadlier in black people when they DO get melanoma. They're unlikely to be diagnosed until it's highly progressed. Not only does the very disbelief that darker skin can even get cancer delay a visit to the doctor, many doctors have no idea what skin cancer on dark skin looks like.
Another commenter went more into detail on this, and the darkest people can have an equivalent of up to SPF 13 protection, which doesn’t do much for high levels of sun exposure.
They also said that the protection only helps against UVB rays that cause sunburn, not UVA rays that cause skin damage and cancer. The natural protection is not enough, sunscreen is still a good idea.
As a black person from Florida, I have never in my life once had a sunburn or knew any black person who has ever had one. Not saying that it can’t happen because I know it can, but it’s hella rare, which is why so many black people don’t believe they need sunscreen
I'm Black. Spent a summer in Mexico. Went to the beach one day with my classmates, we spent hours hanging out and I don't remember using sunscreen or reapplying if I did. I was young and didn't know any better. I got a terrible sunburn. I was still peeling when i got back to the US some weeks later. I don't remember using sunscreen that entire summer. 🤔 probably did some terrible damage to my skin. But I got a rocking tan.
I got my first sunburn this past summer (at age 45). I did a drone photo shoot and was asked to not wear sunscreen as it sometimes shows up. Later that night, my cleavage area was red and burning. Days later, started to peel.
yes everyone needs sunscreen
people with darker skin still get sunburn
its just slightly delayed from the time it takes a fairer skinned person.
you can think of it kinda like a toaster.
It’s a lot longer and much stronger sun to burn medi to darker shades of brown skin. I can’t speak for very light skinned/mixed people, some tan a crazy amount and some do burn…depends really.
We would use sunscreen for cancer not sunburn protection. ;) much lower spf (or none depending on the regional climate).
Darker skin is an evolutionary response to providing resistance to higher amounts of UV light, but it’s not 100%
If you take a pastry white guy and a very dark skinned Black guy and have them exposed to the same amount of high UV sunlight, the pale white guy will get burned way worse. However at a certain point, the person with darker skin can and will get sunburned as well.
There is also a reverse effect: if you take a pale white guy and a dark skinned guy and put them in an environment with very low UV for an extended period of time, like say northern Finland or whatever, the light skinned person will be able to absorb whatever little UV there is and use that so that their body can produce vitamin D and other beneficial effects from a certain minimum level of UV that our bodies need, whereas the darker skinned person will be deficient in these things because they aren’t absorbing as much.
So basically, skin tone (either dark or light) is basically just an evolutionary response to the environment our ancestors had been in over tens of thousands of years, and also why you can generally correlate skin tone to latitude across the earth
We absolutely need sunscreen. I experienced a really bad sunburn on my face walking at pride last year. I don’t ever want to see my face peel like that ever again
We can totally sunburn, it just takes more sun. I don’t burn unless I’m in 85 degree weather or hotter and in direct sunlight for atleast 3 hours but I still use sunscreen daily in the summertime.
Yes we do lol. Why do white peoples ears get so pink when they run? Oh wait that happens to black people too but you can’t see it because of our darker skin. 😂
Yes.
Crazy, I was just complaining about how in the winter, I'm praised for having a lighter complexion as a black woman
In the summer, I'm made fun of, my photos where my skin is lighter are questioned (grown men at work made fun of me for this..)
It really sucks. I believe a big influencer who is black was recently under fire for having dark skin in the summer
We're also criticized for our skin appearing lighter due to lighting and or filters which is out of our control
Ugh that’s so frustrating. I absolutely adore my summer shade! I look so much healthier and alive. In the winter, I find I look zombie-ish. Melanated skin is just so gorgeous to me.
If anyone reads this far down in the comments, it’s always worth saying that people of all skin colors are vulnerable to UV radiation, that even some natural resistance does not block radiation, and that people of all races should be aware of this, use sun protection, and be familiar with the symptoms of cancer. It’s worth discussing questions like this in good faith if it gives the opportunity to remind the public that everyone is vulnerable to UV radiation.
Skin cancer is usually caused by UV radiation and is a genuine threat to life. Many POC around the world, and heartbreakingly in the USA, mistakenly believe that they cannot get skin cancer, and therefore suffer unnecessarily. It is true that POC are less likely to receiving cancer-causing doses of radiation, because melanin does block some radiation, but it’s also true that skin cancer is best treated when caught early, and therefore due to of lack of awareness, POC who get skin cancer are much more likely to have worse outcomes or die of it.
Also, the vague idea of “my skin blocking some radiation” is not how we want to advise people. Most researchers will not commit themselves to “a level of skin color that is perfectly safe from radiation.” The very, very most conservative estimate is that a very, very dark-skinned person may be exposed to roughly twice as much radiation as a very light-skinned person and suffer the same radiation damage. But no amount of radiation damage is good! And most people are not on the extreme ends of skin color! So we want to make sure that people are aware, even if it sounds stupid. There’s no such thing as stupid in public health campaigns.
We definitely do. I'm pretty brown, a milk chocolate shade, and when I went to Barbados, I spent about 8 hours in the sun and came back to England about 4 shades darker. The same thing happened in Greece, Portugal, and every country where the sun is strong. We tan just like lighter skin people. It's especially evident when I try to wear makeup once I'm home, and it looks very wrong. My foundation and concealer is too light, and my lipsticks look strange since the colours suit my normal skintone.
Of course they do. A buddy of mine even had a mild fisherman's tan.
And it also might shock some to find out that dark-skinned brown and black people can also get sunburns and develop skin cancer.
Exactly. And the fact that Black women are most likely to die in childbirth because our doctors are so shit at treating us, it's insane. It's like we're seen as a foreign species of animals, it's genuinely disgusting.
I never realized this was a question so many non-black people have! We do tan, and we do still need SPF. “Black people don’t need sunscreen” is NOT true at all.
Yes. My ex-husband is Ghanaian/Nigerian. He got darker in the sun. Our son is dual heritage (white british/black african), appears 100%, light toned, Black (to the point where people think I adopted him) and also has huge differences in skin tone from just half an hour in direct sunlight.
My father is black and always worked physical labor jobs out in the sun and if you look at pictures of him when he was younger his skin is noticeably lighter than it is today
I remember showing up to a group ride with a farmer’s tan and this woman almost seemed afraid to ask me about it because she thought I might be offended. Yes, we do tan. When I lived out in California I became very dark. Since moving back north my skin tone has become very light. I used to have a medium tone now I am becoming more light skin. I suppose all those years working third shift.
I work outside. Yes.
A good thing though is it’s super rare for a dark skinned black person to get get sunburn or skin Cancer.
Also… other black people who know you notice how much darker you got!😂
Yes. I had a black dive instructor buddy. We were having this conversation on a dive boat when we were putting on sunscreen. He pulled the waistband of his swimsuit a couple inches, and we could see his "tan line."
I lived in Laos for about a decade and people there purposely avoid the sun and use umbrellas as sun protection since they most definitely get darker the more sun they are exposed to.
The sad fact about it is that they do it mainly because of imported racism where darker skins are considered less preferable since it shows you are 'poor' and 'work the fields' etc.
Even more bonkers when you consider that almost the entire population is poor and work the fields at least some of the time!
It’s not imported racism.
Universally, having a lighter skin in agrarian economies makes you look wealthy enough to afford staying in the shade.
In the West, we turned it around after factory and mine workers would not see the sun and keep a light skin. Cue in the orange President.
I think having a tan became fashionable in the 1950s (I'm guessing at the era) not because factory workers didn't see the sun, but because it was a sign of wealth that you had spare time for leisure and could afford to holiday somewhere warm and exotic
Yes, it is actually connected. Your timeline is correct, and it coincides with the introduction of paid leave. People who could afford to travel to sunny destinations looked like they were not bottom working class.
In the end, everyone tries to avoid looking poor.
Just to be clear that the tan thing applies mainly to white people, not other racial group.
And yes, you are correct. Many Caucasian countries do not have tropical beaches so when they think of vacation, they think of the tropics like many sitcoms do.
Tanning salons clientele are normally overwhelmingly white people.
Dermatologists universally agree that direct sunlight exposure causes your skin to age faster. That's why asians look younger because we avoid direct sunlight like the plague.
Oh yea, same with the rest of SE Asia. After backpacking for a year I obviously ran out of my own toiletries and found it very difficult not to find whitening everything for women, even deodorant. Laos was my favourite though. Such a beautiful lush country and the nicest people that were always prepared to help me lost on my own and ask nothing for it. Just, slowly... Can't rush a Laotian. Which was part of the charm.
This is still the same line of reason here, although in other islands they had a specific precolonial practise of cloistering daughters to make sure they stayed fair. It’s half-colonial, since the Spanish imposed the *casta* system, and half-indigenous.
Which makes the colourism issue here a ½ *mestizo*.
Yes, we can. Especially lighter skinned black people.
And also, as an esthetician and a black woman, black people could benefit from sun screen or other sun protection just like other races. Our skin is not as prone to burn or tan, but too much sun exposure can still have an impact.
Not only do we get darker , but we get darker faster due to have thicker melanocytes (cells that produce melanin). So darker skinned people tan much much faster actually
I legit tan on my lunch break.
same. it takes like 10 min for me to get a watch tan lol
I had a dark skinned friend in elementary school who would have a tan line from sitting with her legs crossed outside for a few minutes. Meanwhile I can spend the entire summer outdoors constantly and get mayyyybe half a shade darker. It's crazy. Growing up in Texas I was constantly ridiculed for not having a tan
I'm of the white complexion that either burns, or doesn't tan at all. There's like no in between for me.
If you get enough freckles, it's like having a tan!
I used to get the cutest freckles as a kid when I was out in the sun, and I didn't burn as much.. Now as an adult, I lost the freckles, and gained the burn.. Growing up sucks for so many reasons.
I get darker quick when I am in the sun for a few minutes. Then after a few hours, my skin goes back to normal. But of course, the longer I’m out there, it stays.
Yes this is the answer. I can get a flip flop "tan" from a 15 min walk, but it will fade quickly. I can go the the beach or just outdoors for a week in the summer and that tan will last for months, slowly start to fade, but maybe like 15% will stay and roll over into next summer. So I'd say obviously we get darker in the sun. Like everyone else, for the most part it doesn't last forever. Some of it lingers. I have photos from my childhood where I was significantly darker than I am now 20yrs later. But yes, we can be in the direct sun for 10min and have a perceptible tan line.
Loool me too. It comes in fast then fades but the difference for me at least is it doesn't disappear completely.
This is legit interesting. Have twins and one is darker than the other. The darker skinned twin will get to her "final summer form" after an afternoon in the sun, where her lighter skinned brother will take a month with the same amount of exposure.
“final summer form” is adorable and also so funny
*Powering up* "AHHHHHHHHH... this sunburn sucks.... AHHHHHHHH!!!"
Final summer form sounds like some Dragonball thing 😂
I’ve gotten darker from sticking my arm outside of my window while driving for like 20 min. It happens really quickly.
I'm just as able of changing my colour... although I'm turning red in those 20 minutes. you definitely got the better version of that power : )
I tan in seconds. My darkest tan was after a week in Turks and Caicos. I’ve never been that dark since — but it was a beautiful tan. I looked like a different person. So yes, we tan to the extreme. I spent a day on the beach in July and still have tan lines from that.
Yes!!! I can be out in 5 mins and tan!
is why its important for EVERYONE to wear sunscreen
Oh wow, I’m glad I read this post because I never knew why we get darker so fast! One day at the pool and I’m a completely different color!
I have a winter and summer make up shades
I’m super white Tanning is not a thing my skin knows how to do. A salesperson at Sephora once tried to convince me that I needed the Ivory foundation I was buying, but that I should get a shade or two darker too, “for summer”. I spend lots of time outside, but I wear hats, hang out in the shade and slather on the sunscreen.
My family says "we don't tan, we just go red then back to pale".
My people! Same here. If I’m not careful, I get burnt, walk around lobster coloured for a few days and then it peels and I’m just as white as I was pre-sunburn, but undoubtedly with some new, fun sun damage.
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That maybe explains why my feet do tan, while the rest of me does not. I wear sandals far into the fall and start wearing them early in the spring, so my feet get the most exposure to UVA/UVB. They don’t get dark, but it’s tan for me - you can see the whiter parts where sandal straps go!
I’m so sorry this is completely not relevant but you just reminded me of one summer where we worked outdoors all day for a festival and we saw that my coworker had a gnarly tan on his feet by day’s end. Turned out later it was just dirt. 😂
When I was in the army, I noticed that my hands and face, after 4 years, had a very distinct tan line (to me). My very obviously doctors-office-wall white skin had a line on the wrists where it turned a "bottle of cream with a shot of espresso poured in" almost not pale white.
I am a very pale person who "doesn't tan." I worked as a lifeguard for several summers. I wore SPF 50+ religiously, sought out shade and wore hats whenever I could. I still BURNED. By the end of the summer I would be tanner than I started, but it was really only noticeable if you could see my super white tan lines. Most of my colleagues only needed a day or two in the sun for a similar tan. I haven't had even a hint of a tan since I left that job, because I really does take weeks of constant sun exposure to convince my skin to make more than a few freckles worth of melanin.
As a former roofer I can confirm that all humans basically work this way. You have to get as much as that spring sun as possible and you can handle the summer just fine.
I learned this also from the one summer I managed to tan. I had an easy job with more free time than I had ever had before and spent it all outside hiking or swimming in rivers. It was probably the only time in my life I wasn't Vitamin D deficient in some way as well. But definitely the consistent exposure meant the difference between lobster/pink and actually tan. Still looked a little strange on my naturally pale exterior but I was psyched at the time.
I love when people act like all you have to do is get sunburned and that turns into a tan — even if it was true what an I supposed to do, let every inch of skin get sunburned so it’s even?
I don’t have tan lines, I have freckle disparities. I worked outside in Florida for years. I was extremely diligent with sunscreen application, so I never burned but you can still see where the straps on my shirt were. I also have a freckle tramp stamp on my lower back, because my shirt would ride up.
Yes this! I have a permanent deliniation at the approximate average length of my t-shirt sleeves all year round. Tan? No, no. Only extra freckle.
My father is not diligent regarding sunscreen, despite being a ginger kid who lived in Florida his whole life. The freckles have become one now. He looks tan from a distance. He is just one freckle at this point.
I'm not black but I follow black makeup creators because a lot of their 'brown girl friendly' advice works way better for me as 1/4 Mexican (more purple in my blushes was a LIFESAVER). One girl gets harassed EVERY WINTER for 'bleaching her skin' because she gets lighter and it annoys me so much. Straight up harassment every single year smh.
Yup. My mediterranean skin doesn't just tan a lot, it also gets a healthy green glow going. It's almost impossible to shop for here in Germany so I just don't use foundation in summer but I have two different shades of concealers. Can't even imagine how hard it is to find deeper complexion products here.
*Green?!*
olive skin 😔 im the same way, my mom has olive undertones but she's tan so she can buy makeup. but im olive AND pale- i have to mix in green concealer to my foundation. check out r/fairolives
I have what's called an olive skin tone. Basically all humans have beige-ish brownish skin but that skin can lean into different colours from the pigment in different layers of the skin. Warm toned people will lean more towards red and orange, cool tones people will lean more towards pink and blue. Olive toned people have some blue undertones but they also have some yellow to their skin so they end up looking greenish-grayish. And the more I tan the more yellow my skin produces. It's not even particularly rare, a lot of middle eastern, South Asian and South/South East European People have Olive undertones.
Right lol same
As a dark skinned Nigerian American, I do get even darker in strong sunlight. _"EDIT: Why did this get upvoted so much? Is this such a huge shock to non-black people?"_
My dad is Nigerian and he gets darker in the sun. I remember like 10 years ago I joined my parents on a vacation in Tahiti and my dad had a classic dad aqua socks and teeshirt tan line. And then I got horribly sun burned. (My mom is white so I don’t have as much melanin as my dad. It’s usually enough but not for all day out in the sun at the Equator.) ETA I don’t think curiosity is racist. But like it’s annoying if you just go up to a random black person and ask a question like this. So that’s why I like this subreddit.
> But like it’s annoying if you just go up to a random black person and ask a question like this. So that’s why I like this subreddit. That's because you're essentially only asking "volunteers"on this subreddit. If someone wants to answer, they will. If they want to ignore the post completely, they can. But if you go up to a random black person and ask them completely out of the blue "hey does your skin get darker in the summer?" you're forcing them to interact with you whether they want to or not.
I read in a forum once that it isn’t polite to ask your black acquaintances either because they aren’t your ‘touchstone’ to black culture (which I fully understand and feel is reasonable). I have been too nervous to ask questions like this since.
Yea I think in my desire to be more accepting and learn more about other cultures (black, gays, etc) I failed to understand context and timing are key… Just because a bunch of people are enjoying themselves at the drag show, doesn’t mean they want to explain and placate to heterosexual males.. Now I just leave everyone alone and respect their space.
Seems like you have the right strategy now! This is one reason I love the internet - there are so many content creators that put out YouTube videos about their own cultural experiences, and you get to learn from someone who is already on board with sharing that info!
It took me too long to realize this. I honestly just was trying to learn and be accepting, truly coming from a place of love and intent to understand. I really missed the mark sometimes. :(
Ugh! I just got terrible sunburn for the first time in my life this year. I actually started to think it wasn’t possible. My dad is North African but pretty dark, my mom is Black American but very fair, so my sisters and I are kinda medium-brown. Usually, I just tan really well, but I went to Central America over the summer and was peeling for a week. So yes, Black people do get darker, and we also get sunburn
My brain skipped some words and read that as you get stronger in sunlight 🤣
Oh shit we found Superman!
Súperman got stronger in sun light?
Superman is extremely reactive to pretty much all forms of radiation. In many instances in the comics, especially after a major fight, he would be found floating in space bathing in the solar radiation to "recharge" which is part of how he would be invincible, and allow him to heal super quickly in the rare instances he took real damage. Kryptonite is radioactive, and the green kryptonite specifically emits a radiation that weakens and pretty much "poisons" and can kill him. Blue kryptonite radiation will simply nullify his powers, allowing him to live like a normal human. In a crossover comic with Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan uses his ability to change the radiation he emits to match the radiation of kryptonite, allowing him to make easy work of Superman.
The reason why Kryptonians get power from our sun is because their home planet had a red sun, which are generally older and larger than yellow suns like ours. I don't know if this is still correct in DC continuity, but up until the 1980s if Superman was operating under a blue sun or a white dwarf sun, he would be even more powerful. And a regular human under a white dwarf would have powers equal to Superman under a yellow sun.
[Um, Actually...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtMM2c__sfw) Gold kryptonite nullifies Superman's powers. Blue kryptonite only works on Bizarros, but the exact effect on them varies by era, and it normally has no effect on Kryptonians. Blue kryptonite nullifying his powers was a thing in Smallville, but not the comics.
Blue Kryptonite did nullify his powers at various points, most of them indeed inspired by Smallville, but they did appear in comics. Throughout the years, though, many colors of Kryptonite have appeared, and their effects on him have varied from issue to issue.
But we all pretend that pink kryptonite doesn't exist.
I'm sure Alex Jones has done a show about it.
Nerd.
I love nerds! Now I know stuff I didn’t know before!
Have a question that needs a factual answer ask a nerd
Yeah he draws his power from our sun.
Yes he's a plant
quick someone tell poison ivy
Are you not thinking of spider-plant man?
I can’t speak for very light skinned/mixed people, some tan a crazy amount and some do burn…depends really.
Yeah I have Greek on one side, red headed Welsh on the other, I feel like it's a biannually thing, I burn one year and then tan the next haha, or I get both. Just as long as I remember to reapply sunscreen after 3-4 hrs I won't burn.
I think you meant Black Adam
Black Adam is Egyptian not Nigerian.
Black people are powered by the sun.
so they are like solar panels? is that how they run so fast in the olympics
Ever seen a white solar panel?
Trust me who ever created the sun wasn’t white.
AYO😂
The only way to beat peak usain bolt ... race indoors
😎 lets see how fast you are now, ustayin bolt
Photosynthesis is stored in the melatonin
As a biology student, your sentence is killing me 🤣
Pee is stored in the balls
You may be dyslexic. Dyslexia is very common, affecting ten out of two people.
You sonofabitch you got me
I read “I do get even stronger in dark sunlight” 😭 my adhd brain jumbled everything up
Nigerian Escanor
Sun man new super hero (maybe sunflower man)
As a medium skinned Nigerian, I also get darker in strong sunlight. Questions like this or why I love this love subreddit lol
Have you ever got an actual sunburn? Or just darker? Im white and went in to get a haircut once and my barber asked me so many questions about my sunburn and what it was like
I am medium skinned African and get so much darker in the summer, like Somali people dark and I loved it. I went from light chocolate dark to pure ebony. I didn’t think I could get sunburnt but I spent 21 days in Maui a few years ago . After going out all the time and doing activities in the sun and me not wearing sunscreen, my white boyfriend who wore sunscreen got sunburnt like the next day. When we were leaving, I realized that my shoulders in the back of my neck was peeling. That is my only example of getting sunburn I’ve had. So yea, we do get sunburnt but most likely need continuous exposure for a long period of time for that to happen.
Peeling is not sunburn, sunburn is painful. For a mild case, you’d just notice the pain in the shower, more serious cases clothing would be painful to wear clothes and it would feel hot to touch. It’s possible you didn’t burn, but black people can absolutely get sunburned, especially somewhere like Maui in the summer. Further, while skin cancer rates are much lower for black people, for a confluence of reasons, statistically they are detected much later in black people and are much more likely to be deadly at that point. I agree daily SPF likely isn’t necessary for black people, if you’re gonna be in the sun at a relatively low latitude like Maui during the summer, you should be wearing sunscreen between 9am-3pm. Dark black skin is the equivalent of 12-15 SPF for the record, 30SPF is recommended for the beach at least.
Peeling skin IS sunburnt, it might just be a mild sunburn if it doesn’t hurt much or at all.
Skin is so weird. My good army buddy is half black, half Mexican, way darker than I am in the middle of winter. In the summer? For whatever reason that dude burns when we’re at the range and I’m always just getting a nice tan. By end of summer you can’t tell the back of our necks apart *we both attempt to use sunscreen, we just run out at some point. ** I’m white with Sicilian heritage.
bro gets a power up
I asked my black teacher once in math class once "Do black people get tanned?" He stopped the lesson "That's an excellent question, Stain" He took off his wedding ring and showed us an obvious tan line on his ring finger Then He started telling us stories about his time living in Africa before he moved to Canada He was pretty cool guy. Wicked smart
>Why did this get upvoted so much? Is this such a huge shock to non-black people? It's one of those things that you think about maybe once passingly as like a dumb kid, never think about for 10+ years, and then this guy suddenly brings it up, you go oh yeah I used to wonder about that, and you experience a bit of retroactive joy at being slightly less dumb than you used to be.
Well it is difficult for caucasians to ask these kinds of questions, for fear of being called ignorant or possibly racist. So yes some people have no clue, and just want to know.
As a pasty skinned ginger that turns into a lobster the second I step outside this blew me away. I have always been afraid to ask because I didn’t want to come off as disrespectful or racist in some way. Thank you for answering the question I have always asked myself.
Yes. Back in marching band, the black guy got super dark by the end of the summer (he joked about it with us) as did the dark skinned Indian kid.
So if you lost in time you can determine seasons using this guy
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so no redditors
This problem didn't exist back in the 90's when we got tanned by the radiation of our CRT monitors.
There was a Black girl at my high school who used a tanning bed. She said white people did it, so why couldn’t she.
She can use it but I don't know why anyone would willingly put their body in danger for that...
Light skin was a mutation to increase vitamin D production in climates with less sunlight. Dark skinned people can develop strong vitamin D deficiency in mild climates. Solution? Surprisingly, tanning salons. Edit: Also, darker skin means more melanin, which (partly) protects you from the harmful UV radiation.
Uhhhh or a vitamin d supplement, they're cheap & wayyyy safer
Most people of Caribbean descent eat a lot of fish as part of their diet, and fish has vitamin D. Way more delicious than a supplement.
And way, *way* more delicious than a tanning bed.
Yeah, but have you ever eaten a tanning bed?
Too oily.
I have an autoimmune disease and can't go into the sun much so I developed a vitamin D deficiency. I just take the supplement oil (D vital) every 2 weeks. No risk to my skin.
I do the same! Vitiligo? I do go out in the sun, I just make sure my white spots are covered in SPF sunscreen if I stay for more than 30 minutes outside
wouldn't vitamin d pills be cheaper and less damaging to the skin?
Would it be more accurate to say - lighter skin was a mutation that was naturally selected in climates with lower sunlight. People with that gene were more likely to live long enough to reproduce. The mutation didn’t happen with the intention to increase vitamin D content, it was totally random.
This is more correct, yes!
You’re all wrong. Lighter skin is so we can blend in with the snow. Like polar bears.
Tanning beds do not help with vitamin D, sometbing about the UV-light not being the right one.
well, at least it was probably less dangerous for her than it is for white people, cancer-wise.
Not as much as people think. Firstly the darkest skinned people have the equivalent of SPF 13 protection. Not enough for high levels of sun exposure. Secondly that protection only really protects from UVB rays (which cause sunburn) but not from UVA rays (which penetrate deeper and can cause cancer and skin damage). So they might not be obviously burning but there's still long term risk and damage happening. Black people should still wear at least SPF 30.
I keep saying to my lightly darker boyfriend. “No your Philippine genes don’t protect you from cancer”. Cancer isn’t racist
Melanoma IS racist. > age-adjusted melanoma incidence per 100,000 persons was 22.6 for EA compared with 1.0, 1.4, 3.1, and 4.7 for AA, A/PI, NA, and LA, respectively https://scmsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Vol28_i2-Melanoma.pdf EA = European American, A/PI = Asian/Pacific Islander. It’s more than a 10-fold difference. Your bf should still wear sunscreen if he’s going to be in the sun for hours, but day to day, probably not, if he never gets sunburned.
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That data was from America. Studies done elsewhere would obviously drop the -American. And categorize populations differently e.g. not lump Japanese with Indians under “Asian”.
Also black and other dark skinned people die from skin cancer because it isn’t noticed (many doctors aren’t well trained to spot it on darker skin) and the myth that they don’t get skin cancer /soapbox
Not just white people get skin cancer
Absolutely get darker! Also can get sunburned. Melanin is more protection from the sun but not by any means exclusion.
Yes, I am white and I know this. But I also grew up and live around black people. Black people can get tan lines and farmer's tans just like white people.
I didn't grow up around black ppl and I would never assume they don't tan in the sun lmao skin is all the same, if you expose it to sun it'll produce more melanin. I don't know about ppl with albinism though, they might only burn
I’m Middle Eastern and have medium olive skin (nw40 is my Mac foundation shade) and a white girl at work was shaken to the core to find out I could tan lol
Lol I don't get why people think skin colour would be like static unless youre pale Edit worded weird - I don't get why people would think pale skin can darken from sun but that dark skin would somehow be static
Haha! I asked a coworker this once. We were relatively close, and she was black, so she was happy to help. The answer is yes.
Im a white dude but my sister is mixed race - we get some funny looks when we say we're brother/sister as she's very dark naturally anyways. In the summer she's much much darker and I look even whiter in comparison. I've since stopped waving to her/her friends if I see her out and about as they mainly say "....whos that white guy?"
My husband (who is black), has a farmer tan from mowing the grass
Thanks for asking. I've been told a bunch of times that black people get sunburnt but I used to work at a preschool with a "lather sunscreen on every kid before they go outside" policy and I asked a black kid's mom if she was going to bring in sunscreen for him and she looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world for asking before telling me her kid doesn't need sunscreen. I still don't know the real answer.
I have seen one of my black friends with a terrible sun burn. It can absolutely happen. Also skin cancer. The kid should have sunscreen.
Ya, technically, sure. But black people are at a risk of about 1/30 of white people for melanoma. Black people have significantly higher levels of melanin which offers natural protection.
It's deadlier in black people when they DO get melanoma. They're unlikely to be diagnosed until it's highly progressed. Not only does the very disbelief that darker skin can even get cancer delay a visit to the doctor, many doctors have no idea what skin cancer on dark skin looks like.
It’s much harder to see the damage signs as well
Problem is, we are statistically more likely to die from melanoma if we do get it so the advantage doesn't pan out all that well
It’s what killed Bob Marley.
Another commenter went more into detail on this, and the darkest people can have an equivalent of up to SPF 13 protection, which doesn’t do much for high levels of sun exposure. They also said that the protection only helps against UVB rays that cause sunburn, not UVA rays that cause skin damage and cancer. The natural protection is not enough, sunscreen is still a good idea.
As a black person from Florida, I have never in my life once had a sunburn or knew any black person who has ever had one. Not saying that it can’t happen because I know it can, but it’s hella rare, which is why so many black people don’t believe they need sunscreen
I’m black and I got sunburnt in Scotland of all places. I’ve had such bad sunburn that I couldn’t sleep with a sheet or wear a seatbelt.
In Scotland?! Well shit that must have been quite a shock.
Sure was.
I'm an olive skin Brazilian and I got burned in Scotland as well. I sat on a beer garden for hours so...
I'm Black. Spent a summer in Mexico. Went to the beach one day with my classmates, we spent hours hanging out and I don't remember using sunscreen or reapplying if I did. I was young and didn't know any better. I got a terrible sunburn. I was still peeling when i got back to the US some weeks later. I don't remember using sunscreen that entire summer. 🤔 probably did some terrible damage to my skin. But I got a rocking tan.
Then again. Black people shouldn't use sunscreen to avoid burns. But to avoid skincancer like everyone else.
Black woman here. I've gotten sunburned more than once. Inflammation, soreness, and peeling skin as a result. I'm also pretty dark skinned.
I got my first sunburn this past summer (at age 45). I did a drone photo shoot and was asked to not wear sunscreen as it sometimes shows up. Later that night, my cleavage area was red and burning. Days later, started to peel.
yes everyone needs sunscreen people with darker skin still get sunburn its just slightly delayed from the time it takes a fairer skinned person. you can think of it kinda like a toaster.
It’s a lot longer and much stronger sun to burn medi to darker shades of brown skin. I can’t speak for very light skinned/mixed people, some tan a crazy amount and some do burn…depends really. We would use sunscreen for cancer not sunburn protection. ;) much lower spf (or none depending on the regional climate).
Smh idk how but it’s a myth that’s been in the black community for decades. That black people don’t need sunscreen.
Darker skin is an evolutionary response to providing resistance to higher amounts of UV light, but it’s not 100% If you take a pastry white guy and a very dark skinned Black guy and have them exposed to the same amount of high UV sunlight, the pale white guy will get burned way worse. However at a certain point, the person with darker skin can and will get sunburned as well. There is also a reverse effect: if you take a pale white guy and a dark skinned guy and put them in an environment with very low UV for an extended period of time, like say northern Finland or whatever, the light skinned person will be able to absorb whatever little UV there is and use that so that their body can produce vitamin D and other beneficial effects from a certain minimum level of UV that our bodies need, whereas the darker skinned person will be deficient in these things because they aren’t absorbing as much. So basically, skin tone (either dark or light) is basically just an evolutionary response to the environment our ancestors had been in over tens of thousands of years, and also why you can generally correlate skin tone to latitude across the earth
We absolutely need sunscreen. I experienced a really bad sunburn on my face walking at pride last year. I don’t ever want to see my face peel like that ever again
We can totally sunburn, it just takes more sun. I don’t burn unless I’m in 85 degree weather or hotter and in direct sunlight for atleast 3 hours but I still use sunscreen daily in the summertime.
Yes black people can get sunburned, and it f$&king sucks!
Hate arguing with others that I can burn. If it’s happened before, why argue further? Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
Absolutely can happen. I’m black and definitely got sunburnt before. If you sit out in the sun be prepared.
Yes we do lol. Why do white peoples ears get so pink when they run? Oh wait that happens to black people too but you can’t see it because of our darker skin. 😂
Yes. Crazy, I was just complaining about how in the winter, I'm praised for having a lighter complexion as a black woman In the summer, I'm made fun of, my photos where my skin is lighter are questioned (grown men at work made fun of me for this..) It really sucks. I believe a big influencer who is black was recently under fire for having dark skin in the summer We're also criticized for our skin appearing lighter due to lighting and or filters which is out of our control
Ugh that’s so frustrating. I absolutely adore my summer shade! I look so much healthier and alive. In the winter, I find I look zombie-ish. Melanated skin is just so gorgeous to me.
If anyone reads this far down in the comments, it’s always worth saying that people of all skin colors are vulnerable to UV radiation, that even some natural resistance does not block radiation, and that people of all races should be aware of this, use sun protection, and be familiar with the symptoms of cancer. It’s worth discussing questions like this in good faith if it gives the opportunity to remind the public that everyone is vulnerable to UV radiation. Skin cancer is usually caused by UV radiation and is a genuine threat to life. Many POC around the world, and heartbreakingly in the USA, mistakenly believe that they cannot get skin cancer, and therefore suffer unnecessarily. It is true that POC are less likely to receiving cancer-causing doses of radiation, because melanin does block some radiation, but it’s also true that skin cancer is best treated when caught early, and therefore due to of lack of awareness, POC who get skin cancer are much more likely to have worse outcomes or die of it. Also, the vague idea of “my skin blocking some radiation” is not how we want to advise people. Most researchers will not commit themselves to “a level of skin color that is perfectly safe from radiation.” The very, very most conservative estimate is that a very, very dark-skinned person may be exposed to roughly twice as much radiation as a very light-skinned person and suffer the same radiation damage. But no amount of radiation damage is good! And most people are not on the extreme ends of skin color! So we want to make sure that people are aware, even if it sounds stupid. There’s no such thing as stupid in public health campaigns.
We definitely do. I'm pretty brown, a milk chocolate shade, and when I went to Barbados, I spent about 8 hours in the sun and came back to England about 4 shades darker. The same thing happened in Greece, Portugal, and every country where the sun is strong. We tan just like lighter skin people. It's especially evident when I try to wear makeup once I'm home, and it looks very wrong. My foundation and concealer is too light, and my lipsticks look strange since the colours suit my normal skintone.
Im black in summertime, brown in winter season
There are different shades of black. The black get blacker. Edit: I'm not a racist 90% of the time
The other 10% of the time, you're judging how black someone is.
Thank you for asking. I learned something new myself
Yes. Everybody has melanin and melanocytes, which are responsible for skin becoming tan after prolonged UV exposure.
Black man here. When returning to African after long periods abroad, other Africans can tell we were either abroad or In jail.
Of course they do. A buddy of mine even had a mild fisherman's tan. And it also might shock some to find out that dark-skinned brown and black people can also get sunburns and develop skin cancer.
It might shock some to realize that black people are humans? Crazy.
I know, right? Let's not get into the issue where medical practitioners think PoCs don't feel pain, so they don't use enough anesthetic or any at all.
Exactly. And the fact that Black women are most likely to die in childbirth because our doctors are so shit at treating us, it's insane. It's like we're seen as a foreign species of animals, it's genuinely disgusting.
yes. I live in Ghana and my face and forearms are darker than the rest of my body and I'm already dark skinned to begin with
I never realized this was a question so many non-black people have! We do tan, and we do still need SPF. “Black people don’t need sunscreen” is NOT true at all.
Yes. My ex-husband is Ghanaian/Nigerian. He got darker in the sun. Our son is dual heritage (white british/black african), appears 100%, light toned, Black (to the point where people think I adopted him) and also has huge differences in skin tone from just half an hour in direct sunlight.
Yes. I'm a bit shocked you didn't know this, but no shame ig. Black ppl are usually the most prone to tanning rather than burning.
Lol yes I'm always darker in the summer time and lighter in the winter time. My friends/family and I joke about it
Human skin, for the most part, gets darker in the sun. So yes, black people do get darker with sun exposure.
I’m an Indian Guy and I get darker
My father is black and always worked physical labor jobs out in the sun and if you look at pictures of him when he was younger his skin is noticeably lighter than it is today
I remember showing up to a group ride with a farmer’s tan and this woman almost seemed afraid to ask me about it because she thought I might be offended. Yes, we do tan. When I lived out in California I became very dark. Since moving back north my skin tone has become very light. I used to have a medium tone now I am becoming more light skin. I suppose all those years working third shift.
Yes. Source: I am black, we all get darker in the sun just as everyone else. We also get lighter in the winter.
Being that black people are also human, yes.
I work outside. Yes. A good thing though is it’s super rare for a dark skinned black person to get get sunburn or skin Cancer. Also… other black people who know you notice how much darker you got!😂
Yeah we do get darker and still need suncreen
Yes. Just because your skin is dark, doesn’t mean it can’t get darker. Shades exist
Yes. I had a black dive instructor buddy. We were having this conversation on a dive boat when we were putting on sunscreen. He pulled the waistband of his swimsuit a couple inches, and we could see his "tan line."
I lived in Laos for about a decade and people there purposely avoid the sun and use umbrellas as sun protection since they most definitely get darker the more sun they are exposed to. The sad fact about it is that they do it mainly because of imported racism where darker skins are considered less preferable since it shows you are 'poor' and 'work the fields' etc. Even more bonkers when you consider that almost the entire population is poor and work the fields at least some of the time!
It’s not imported racism. Universally, having a lighter skin in agrarian economies makes you look wealthy enough to afford staying in the shade. In the West, we turned it around after factory and mine workers would not see the sun and keep a light skin. Cue in the orange President.
I think having a tan became fashionable in the 1950s (I'm guessing at the era) not because factory workers didn't see the sun, but because it was a sign of wealth that you had spare time for leisure and could afford to holiday somewhere warm and exotic
Yes, it is actually connected. Your timeline is correct, and it coincides with the introduction of paid leave. People who could afford to travel to sunny destinations looked like they were not bottom working class. In the end, everyone tries to avoid looking poor.
Just to be clear that the tan thing applies mainly to white people, not other racial group. And yes, you are correct. Many Caucasian countries do not have tropical beaches so when they think of vacation, they think of the tropics like many sitcoms do. Tanning salons clientele are normally overwhelmingly white people.
How do “red necks” fit into this?
Farmers working their fields with their head bent down would get the sun on the back of their neck.
Dermatologists universally agree that direct sunlight exposure causes your skin to age faster. That's why asians look younger because we avoid direct sunlight like the plague.
Oh yea, same with the rest of SE Asia. After backpacking for a year I obviously ran out of my own toiletries and found it very difficult not to find whitening everything for women, even deodorant. Laos was my favourite though. Such a beautiful lush country and the nicest people that were always prepared to help me lost on my own and ask nothing for it. Just, slowly... Can't rush a Laotian. Which was part of the charm.
This is still the same line of reason here, although in other islands they had a specific precolonial practise of cloistering daughters to make sure they stayed fair. It’s half-colonial, since the Spanish imposed the *casta* system, and half-indigenous. Which makes the colourism issue here a ½ *mestizo*.
Yes.
Yes, we can. Especially lighter skinned black people. And also, as an esthetician and a black woman, black people could benefit from sun screen or other sun protection just like other races. Our skin is not as prone to burn or tan, but too much sun exposure can still have an impact.