I have definitely written about sunburns before. I can't find the digital proof (nor have I looked very hard), and I'm not at my own desktop, so I can't check my files. But I swear, I've written about the dangers of sunburns before, which I'm starting to realize is a bit overdone. I mean, we spend our whole lives learning how unhealthy sun damage is to skin, but so many of us get sunburns anyway.
So I'm here today to tell you why sunburns are awesome.
1) Sunburns turn your skin red, and everyone looks good in red. I once read that when women's magazines really want to sell copies, they'll put the cover model in a red outfit. We just want some red in our lives. Red lipstick, red hair, red velvet cake, red tractors, heck, even the water bottle I'm drinking out of right now is red.
2) Freckles are just your body telling you that you were meant to have a darker skin tone. Here's how I see it (I got a 90-something in Bio30 so I know things): freckles are just a sign that your skin wants to be a darker shade. I know people who get tons of freckles when they spend too much time in the sun, so many that their shoulders are almost covered. I'm pretty sure that's evolution.
3) Skin peels naturally anyway, so you're just speeding up the process. This is a great way to look younger! Reveal the younger skin below and look 17 instead of 20! Pretty sure people are going to be asking to see your ID when you go to buy lottery tickets, and everyone knows how flattering that is.
4) Extra sunburn means extra Vitamin D. An adult needs 200 IU (international units) of Vitamin D every day. And while you can get that from supplements or your diet, you can also get it from direct exposure to sunlight (or, just as awesome, tanning beds!). So if you're pale like me, that's something like 20 minutes in the sun without sunscreen. Imagine doubling or tripling that though? Vitamins are awesome and you can never get enough.
5) You're only young once, so you might as well play in the sun. You're not going to care about unsightly wrinkles when you're older. By the time you actually have to worry about wrinkles, there'll be some inexpensive cream that can fight sun damage anyway. And even if there isn't, no one cares what you look like anyway (because you're old)!
6) Summer is short so you might as well spend as much time soaking up the sun as you can. It's not like you're getting sunburns all year 'round, like other people are in tropical places in the world. Two months of red, itchy skin is nothing. You're invincible.
Tonaya Marr is never sarcastic. She truly loves sunburns. She thinks all the safety precautions around sun exposure are probably just a government conspiracy. You should definitely believe everything Tonaya wrote in this column, because she is a 20-year-old journalism student and knows lots about health sciences. To learn even more, e-mail Tonaya at tonaya.marr@gmail.com, or send a tweet to @TonayaMarr.
