Being a woman, I am constantly trying to enhance my appearance. Now that I am older, I am more comfortable in my appearance, and any enhancing I do is mainly for myself. When I was younger, I followed the trends, wore make up and I would lay out in the sun to try and achieve that perfect skin color. For women, there are many pressures to look beautiful at all times, and unfortunately girls pick up on this at a young age. I suppose I started to become more preoccupied with my appearance when I entered into my teenage years. I did not wear much makeup, nor did I wear the provocative clothes that most girls at school were wearing, but I did want beautiful bronze skin. Living in Las Vegas, most girls have blonde hair and dark tans; they were usually the prettiest. Already being blonde, I was half way there, so I set out for dark, beautiful skin.
Being a white girl, this was going to be hard to achieve, but I was ready to go to any lengths to get a beautiful tan. This particular event took place when I was in middle school. I was twelve or thirteen years old, and I was very aware of my appearance. I remember spending a lot of time in the mirror making sure that my hair was perfect; I would wake up early to pick out the best outfit, but still I did not look like the pretty girls at school. I thought, maybe if I had a tan, I would look like them; it seemed to be the only thing missing. My best friend Heather lived across the street, so I went over to her house one day to propose my plan. She was also white with blonde hair, and agreed that a tan would enhance our appearance. She was on board with the idea.
Other than lying out in the sun, I did not have much else of an approach, but Heather had it all planned out. She told me to go home and get my bikini and meet her back at her house. On this particular day that we decided to tan, it was July, one of the hottest months in Las Vegas. I don’t remember the exact temperature, but it must have been over 100 degrees. I remember running across the street to my house and seeing the heat waves coming off the pavement. I could have fried an egg on the street it was so hot, but all I kept thinking about was my soon to be perfect tan. After grabbing my bathing suit, I ran back to Heather’s house. When I got there she was already in her bathing suit, and she was lathering her body with baby oil. “Why are you using that? It’s for babies, isn’t it?” I asked, looking confused. I thought we were supposed to use tanning oil to get tan. “This is what my mom uses” she said, “and she is the tannest person I know!” So I agreed, put on my bathing suit and began rubbing the baby oil on my body. I remember the sweet, soft smell of the oil, and the slippery feel of it on my skin. After we were covered head to toe in the oil, we grabbed some towels, a radio and a couple of sodas and headed outside. The second half of Heathers plan was presented when we got to the backyard. “I think we would get tanner if we lay on the roof, we would be closer to the sun!” she said. For some reason, this made complete sense to me, so I happily followed her. The roof seemed like the perfect place to tan; it was only slightly inclined so our radio and sodas sat perfectly upright while we talked, and basked in the sun. I don’t know how long we were up there, but it seemed like hours. We made our way down when we got hungry, and this is when our brilliant idea turned out to be not so brilliant after all. My skin was hot to the touch, and very pink in color, but I thought that was just the first step before I was to become tan and beautiful.
It didn’t take much time before we were in complete pain. I remember that it was painful to move, I did my best not to put my arms down. We didn’t know what to do. Should we sit in cold water? Or rub ice cubes on our arms and legs? As we were trying to figure out what to do, Heather’s mother came home. She looked horrified. She began to curse and scream while she rushed us into the bathroom. I didn’t understand why she was so upset. She pulled out a bottle of green goo called Aloe Vera and began gently rubbing it on our skin. I remember with every application I winced with pain, but was relieved by the cold soothing feeling. Eventually our skin blistered pretty badly, and then our skin peeled off in patches. We never did get the tan that we set out for.
That was one of the most painful and memorable experiences that I have. That day I learned the dangers that the sun poses, especially when one is covered in baby oil! That day gave me such a negative experience of tanning, that never again would I go to such lengths to try and get tan. Although I still do things to alter my appearance, whether it is to feel good about myself, or to try and give a certain impression, I make sure to do it in a healthy way.
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