Why Gen Z are turning to sunbeds for a tan this summer

Daily Mail​

24-05-2025

Gen Z: Can you do me a favour and fake tan my back?
Boomer: Jesus, you look like the bloke from those Tango adverts!
It's not orange, it's Coco & Eve's £26 Bronzing Foam. It's got 4.2 million likes on TikTok and a bottle sold every 20 seconds last month.
It sounds like something you'd order in a dessert parlour. And I'm not rubbing it in your back unless you've got a hazmat suit to hand.
How else do you expect me to get my all-over mahogany tan?
Ask David Dickinson. But why would you want to look like him?
According to The Times' fashion editor Harriet Walker, an uber-dark glow is the 'new status symbol'. Not the 'posh and outdoorsy Jilly Cooper variety', but 'sun-snogged skin' à la Donald Trump.
So, somewhere between Harissa and Bamboozle on the Farrow & Ball paint chart?
In the words of Claudia Winkleman, I want to be 'burnt orange… like I live in Capri'.
You live in Leeds. And it's raining.
That's why we fake it. Jules Von Hep, founder of bougie fake tan brand Isle of Paradise, says demand for 'the darkest bronze shades possible' is higher than ever.
That'll explain the faint smell of biscuits when I walk down the high street. Presumably it's your mother who's tasked with getting the stains off your bed sheets?
I have one of The Range's £7.99 Fake Tan Sheet Protectors. It's a non-absorbent black sheet and was one of the store's bestselling products last year.
Two nights sleeping on that and your entire room must smell like a Hobnobs factory.
My Coco & Eve foam is tropical mango and guava scented, actually.
I borrowed my daughter's fake tan once – it stuck to all my dry bits and I ended up looking like I'd marinated my feet in Nando's sauce.
Rookie error. You need to follow beauty buff Juliana Shiel's Tanning Thursday tutorial. It's got 1.4 million views on TikTok.
Don't you just slap it on like Dove's gradual-tan moisturiser?
A proper tanning routine, Shiel says, has six steps: exfoliate, scrub, moisturise, apply the first layer of tan, apply a second layer, then rinse.
I've built flatpack Ikea furniture in fewer steps. How much does all this cost?
The UK's most popular brand, Bondi Sands, sells a full self-tan kit for £100.
You'd be cheaper flying to Malaga and back for a day on the beach.
Admittedly Claudia Winkleman's routine is more budget-friendly. 'I've used Bisto gravy granules to tan,' she told a podcast. 'And table salt and a scourer to exfoliate.'
Her skin must be as rough as a cat's tongue. In my day, you lathered yourself in cooking oil, lay in the garden and baked. If your skin audibly sizzled, you knew it was working.
Well, vitamin D is good for you, apparently. And plenty of my friends think that's reason enough to get back on the sunbeds.
How has the government banned smoking indoors but not those human toasters?
As The Week says, they've had a worrying rebrand. The UK's biggest chain has quadrupled its profits by selling tanning beds as 'collagen promoting and immunity boosting'.
You youngsters are always going on about healthy living. How does roasting yourself in a carcinogenic coffin fit in with that?
'I use tanning beds because they boost serotonin production,' one 20something said on TikTok. 'They make me feel relaxed.'
I'm not sure I'd be relaxed stuffed into what's essentially a three-by-two-metre oven.
Some people have less lofty reasons. 'It stops my tan transferring to the toilet seat,' another user shared.
Sounds like me slathering on Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil and sunning myself like a rotisserie chicken is the least of the NHS's problems.
I'd go as red as a lobster given all the retinol skincare I use.
Everyone knows red turns to bronze. In fact, I feel a new TikTok hashtag brewing for sunbathing die-hards.
What UV is what you get.