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Modeling Tip: To Tan or Not to Tan?

The temperature hit 80 degrees in New York today and soon Sheep’s Meadow and beaches everywhere will be strewn with bronzing bods. Should yours be one of them? Not if you’re a model. Not if you care about your skin. Not if you don’t want your face to resemble a prune when you’re 50. Those latter reasons are self-explanatory, but why shouldn’t a model be tan?

Model Coco Rocha

Model Coco Rocha

1. Tan lines can get you fired (I lost a catalog job when I showed up with strap marks on my shoulders after failing to apply sunscreen the day before at Volleypalooza in South Beach. Getting up at 5:30 AM, going to the location, having my hair and makeup done, and then being sent home, minus the $2000 I would have earned, was like rubbing salt on my sunburn, I’ll tell you that.)

Sheep's Meadow, Central Park

Sheep’s Meadow Sunbathers

2. Wrinkles and sun spots will shorten your career.

3. Winter clothes are shot in the summer; a model sporting wool looks weird with a wicked tan.

4. If the client wants you to look tan, that all can be done digitally these days, and if you want to look tan, use a self-tanner—no cancer risk necessary!

5. Healthy, porcelain skin is in.

 

Self-Tanner Ratings from ABC’s Good Morning America:

Estee Lauder sunless super tan $25. Model’s Ratings: Color: 9 Application: 8 Smell: 9

Coppertone endless summer sunless tanning lotion $12. Model’s Ratings: Color: 8 Application: 8 Smell: 9

Clarins self tanning instant gel $24.50. Model’s Ratings: Color: 7 Application: 9 Smell: 7

Neutrogena sunless tanning foam $10. Model’s Ratings: Color: 6 Application: 9 Smell: 3

Which self-tanner is your fave?

(FYI, for some reason, Tuesday always ends up being insanely busy, so I’m shifting my tip day to Thursday. It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it—Thursday Tip—but I promise the content will be as helpful as the advice I doled out on Tuesdays!)

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