No more pasty white skins!

[Pieter]

I am guilty of this myself! (So no offense intended!), but I really think that as reenactors we have to do something about it! There are many groups out there that have all the right stuff, and look good in their gear - However - I must say that enough is enough! Please let's all do something about it! Go to the beach on a weekend afternoon. Even if you do not like to sport your pasty blue/white skin, or are ashamed of your lack of firm abs and pecks, then go wearing sorts and a T-shirt. Take some sun-block, a good book and your I-pod and go spend the day tanning away that pasty white, "never spent a day in the sun" unhealthy, spoiled modern indoors, feather soft look that so man of us have. Even if you have to pop into a tanning booth at the end of the winter! The fact is even us northern Europeans do have a nice colour to our skins when we spend some time outside! One can even get tanned or burnt on a cloudy day - if you spend it outside!I know doctors are recommending that people do not spend too much time in the sun, but they do recommend that we do get some sun, so that our bodies can produce vitamin D. So get a high SPF sun-block and go try to look like you actually live outside!Let's try to look like Romans or Auxiliaries - these people lived outside! Imagine how much better we would all look if the person inside all that fantastic period gear looked like somebody from that period!? No more pasty white legs with short tunics!!

Pieter.

[Matthew Amt]

While I'd love to look like a proper bronzed god, both of my parents have suffered from skin cancer! So no way, I stay out of the sun if I can. It is not your friend! In addition, I believe sunblock is supposed to prevent tanning, which is the skin's natural defense against harmful ultraviolet rays. So if you get a tan, you're not using enough sunblock, or it's not strong enough.

Damage to your skin from sunlight is cumulative and irreversible. Stay healthy and stay out of the sun.

As an alternative, lotions designed to give an artificial tan are improving. A couple ladies in my office use the stuff, and the results look quite natural, to my eye. (Not that I'm looking at them. Well, okay, maybe just a little. I mean, I work with them all day long. I mean...)

If a visitor to the Legio XX camp ever comments on my pasty legs, I roll my eyes in exasperation and ask if they ever tried to get a tan in BRITAIN?!? That works.

Valete,

Matthew the Troglodyte

[Doc]

Matt,

I agree that the sun may not be a great choice for color. But lotions that give artifical color and you are worried about the suns rays giving you a problem.

I am a chemist and I know the kind of crap these industrial moguls put into things. Then the tanning booth. Are you kidding me? Talk about being irridiated.

Stick to the natural thing in moderation.

[Theodosius the Great]

I'm with Matthew on this since I too have sensitive skin. It doesn't tan - it freckles,
so I don't want to add any more (!) :lol: Matthew's solutions are quite sensible, Doc's
objections notwithstanding, given that we're only talking about using them two
or three times a year for events (and only in strategic places).

While I agree that pasty skin isn't the most plausible complexion I think a much
bigger problem is modern haircuts. I wish guys would just stay away from using
an electric razor. Grow it out, will ya ?!

~Theo

[Doc]

Theo,

Everyone has a different body. It only takes once under the correct conditions to do you harm not necessarily two or three times. I only used a paritcular chemical very few times when I was doing research and it set off dermatitis.

Of course I am not advocating bathing in the sun especially since your skin is sensitive. But your sensitive skin is not better off absorbing synthetic pigments for your skin. Thus it is not a sensible to apply chemical crap to your body notwithstading how "bad" the sun is.

I just cam back from Italy (Calabria Region where I am from) and people stay in the sun ALLLLLLLL day with temperatures topping out at 41C. Some with sunblock and other without. I am quite sure that what they are doing is not going to help them in the long run. However, the average life expectancy in Italy is higher than in the US. People there are not big on pigments and tanning booths. There are those people with verrrrrry fair skin as well. They take adequate precautions and all is well.

[A_Volpe]

hmm yeah maybe we ought to all take a nice "Sun Bath" like Ben Franklin suggests, even Moon Baths, too..

In the noood! What will the neighbors think?!

:mrgreen:

[Doc]

Hey,

The Romans were not exactly shy about their bodies. As a matter of fact nudity wan not obscene nor pornographic to them as we view it today. It makes you wonder who was/is less free.

[M. Demetrius]

I lived in Southern Italy a few decades ago, and it amazed me how quickly the Italians tanned, and how dark their skin became. I have white skin and that's that. If I stay out in the sun long, it turns red, sometimes blisters, and falls off, leaving new white skin. I just don't tan, so I just don't get unnecessary sun on the skin if I have the choice. In my youth, I worked on a crew that was building a bridge across a wide river, and worked a whole summer often with no shirt. I probably sunburned twenty times that year, and never got anything that even resembled a tan. It just ain't in the cards for me.

[kevair464]

I'm gonna sound a little effeminate saying this. But for that nice good authentic Italian look, if you really are shooting have have that mediteranian bronze color, would be to go get a spray on tan. Yes its very girly, but I must admit my wife has talked me into doing it a couple times before vactions and stuff and it does work quite well. They also sell stuff at the store you can do yourself, or have your significant other do it for you. If you do it right it comes out nice, you just have to be thorough and patient or it will be streaky. Thats the safe non-cancer causing alternative to sitting out in the sun, albiet one must be comfortable with thier manhood to walk into a tanning salon and get a spray tan.

[Medicus matt]

I doubt that any of them would have maintained much of a tan if they'd been posted in Northern Britain for any length of time.

[Doc]

In Northern Britain I agree that maintaining a tan could be difficult. But the great outdoors has a way of "coloring" you irrespective of where you might be.

[Medicus matt]

In Northern Britain I agree that maintaining a tan could be difficult. But the great outdoors has a way of "coloring" you irrespective of where you might be.

Yes, but it fades with time.

i think the drizzle washes most of it away.
Especially if you're more Germanic/Scandinavian rather than Mediteranean in tone.

[Nearco]

I will follow your advice and go to the beach next weekend :mrgreen:

[Pieter]

Hey I'm not saying go give yourself skin cancer! I'm not even saying we should look like we're from the southern Mediterranean. Common sense should obviously come first! If you know that your skin cannot handle the sun, then by all means stay out!(you might want to look into starting a Vampire group!). What I am saying is that pasty white skin does not look the part!. southern/Mediterranean Europeans look different from northern Europeans - when we both spend time outside in the sun!. But Northern Europeans are not naturally pasty white skinned. Working outside or spending time outdoors everyday in the summer, even as far north as the Scandinavian peninsula will give one a sunned look or some natural colour. I for one will never have a bronzed or tanned look, but I know the difference between what my skin looks like during the summer vs. the winter. You can get badly sun-burned on a cloudy day, so northern English weather is no protection from the sun! I'm not saying to go try to look like a Greek bronze skinned god! Look like someone who's work has him outdoors killing and building! If those few weekends you spend, with your bony, knock-kneed, pasty little legs being exposed to the sun, is not going to kill you, then why would spending every summer weekend wearing shorts and a T shirt, while you are out doing yard work, hiking, enjoying the nice weather etc., etc.... Maybe I should have been more clear: I do not either, have the patience to sit on the beach all day just to tan! I do like spending time by the sea ( I need a book though), but even that gets old fast! But I like being outdoors! The point is: what I'm trying to say is that you may well object, but you/we do not look good in our gear, when WE (our kit may , but we don't) do not look the part! No offense intended to anyone (I look at myself in the mirror at the end of winter, and am horrified at my own pasty white legs!). I am by no means saying that everybody does not look the part.
Pieter

[PhilusEstilius]

I think that I have to agree with Doc on the idea of just getting out into the great outdoors for living not too many minutes away from Hadrians' Wall I would have to say that most of the people up this way look an awful lot better than some of the prima-donas I've seen running around some beaches.
Indeed most up this way look as tough and wind blasted as any of those Northern European Garrisons who manned the Wall so many years ago, and yes you can get a tan up here for the Sun shines about 18 hours a day in summer.