This story is part of Glossy’s week-long look at the state of luxury, exploring what consumers and brands are deeming worthy of investment in 2024. To see all the stories in the series, click here.
When Coco Chanel debuted a golden tan after a trip to the French Riviera in 1923, she set off a craze for bronzed skin as a sign of wealth and leisure. Then, the discovery in the 1950s that dihydroxyacetone, or DHA, could temporarily turn skin bronze helped birth the fake tan industry, making Chanel’s golden glow accessible to those who couldn’t afford a trip to the Mediterranean. But the real thing still remained a premium even into the 21st century. Today’s celebrities and trendsetters, however, would be loath to admit to baking in the sun for hours, lest they be seen as irresponsible. But that doesn’t mean the appearance of a tan has lost its status — it’s just been reformulated and repackaged to match today’s skin-care-first beauty ideals.
“It was more acceptable for you to tan in the sun,” said Hind Sebti, co-founder of beauty incubator Waldencast and founder of skin-care brand Whind, speaking about the tanning phenomenon of the early 2000s. “A tan [was] earned, not bought.”
Attitudes to tanning have changed a century after Chanel’s famous vacation. With increased awareness of the sun’s damage to our skin, both medically and aesthetically, today’s influencers speak instead of slathering themselves in their favorite SPF when they go on holiday, and sticking to strict skin care regimes. And yet, many famous faces are still bronzed and glowing. “People don’t just want to use self-tan [products]. They want to use skin care with [tanning] benefits,” said Sebti. “The thing that is associated with status is, I would say, great skin.”
In 2022, Sebti’s Whind brand launched a $35 bronzing face serum, which quickly became its top-selling product and led the company to launch bronzing body care in 2024. And it’s far from the only skin-care brand to offer tanning or bronzing products with a premium look and feel, in contrast to the sticky, smelly and often cheap self-tanners traditionally found in the drugstore aisle.
Drunk Elephant’s peptide-infused bronzing drops took TikTok by storm in 2023, with brands like E.l.f. rushing to offer more affordable dupes of the $38 face drops. Parisian skin-care line Typology offers a $68 plant-based tanning serum duo in its chic apothecary-style packaging. In 2023, Dior launched a Dior Solar range with a $70 bronzing oil. French skin-care company Sisley, meanwhile, offers a $170 hydrating tanning face cream. According to DataHorizzon Research, the self-tanning industry will grow to $2.1 billion by 2032.
“The appetite for tanning goes in and out, but it’s still an industry worth billions every year,” said celebrity spray-tanner James Harknett, who has worked in the tanning industry for over two decades. “People are getting more educated year by year regarding the damage the sun does, and they’re more aware of the harmful rays from sunbeds, as well.”
New marketing strategies have shifted self-tanners from simply a beauty tool to a “wellness” experience. In February, New York’s ModernHaus Soho hotel held a wellness pop-up complete with ice bath plunges, infrared saunas and a tanning booth courtesy of U.K.-based self-tanning company Tan-Luxe.
“The inclusion of Tan-Luxe and their first-ever consumer-facing spray tan experience was a strategic choice to enhance the wellness offerings at the pop-up,” said Kori Yoran, gm of ModernHaus SoHo. “We were able to provide our guests with a way to achieve a sun-kissed glow without the harmful effects of UV radiation, ultimately supporting both their wellness and skin-care goals.”
Changing attitudes are also bringing new clientele to the world of fake tanning. Harknett, who also offers spray tans to the public out of London’s W Hotel, said men have increased from roughly 5% of his clientele to close to 50% in the past 10 years.
On that note, Gregor Jaspers, founder of the men’s skin-care line The Grey, is betting more men will invest in self-tanner. In 2021, he introduced a tanning serum to The Grey’s lineup, with the €59 ($66) product promising anti-aging benefits through its inclusion of antioxidants. Jaspers recalled visiting tanning beds in his youth. But, he said, increased awareness of the dangers of the sun in his native Netherlands has led to a decrease in tanning beds and the introduction of public SPF dispensers in parks and plazas. Jaspers said selling a tanning serum to his male consumers was slow-going at first, but the product is now one of The Grey’s top sellers.
“Male consumers taking the first step toward color cosmetics is still a hurdle,” he said, regarding the tanning serum. “Because it’s not skin care, it’s something even more of a vanity product.”
Sebti also said male consumers are increasingly purchasing Whind’s bronzing serum, even though the line is not heavily marketed to men. But, she especially attributed the product’s popularity to consumers with deeper skin tones who were previously ignored by the tanning industry. Harknett, too, said he has seen an increase in Black and Asian customers — newer products on the market have allowed him to tailor shades to a wider range of skin tones.
“I grew up in Morocco, where there was no fake tan,” said Sebti, who formulated Whind’s bronzing serum to work on olive and darker skin tones. “The perception was that only people with fair skin want to use a fake tan. And if you have dark skin, you don’t use it.”
The evolving product assortment in self-tanning matches a wider beauty industry shift to make product lines more inclusive of a range of skin tones. Tanning, like any beauty ritual, is still reflective of cultural norms, after all. In recent years, white celebrities including Ariana Grande and Kylie Jenner have been accused of “blackfishing,” or attempting to appear racially ambiguous through impossibly dark fake tans.
The desire for a “real” tan has not entirely gone away. At the start of 2024, Kim Kardashian proudly shared on TikTok her tanning bed at her Skkn offices, to swift public backlash. In recent months, young TikTokers have also showcased their self-proclaimed addiction to tanning or promoted dangerous tanning injections or nasal sprays. At the same time, certain strains of wellness influencers have eschewed SPF as harmful.
According to Harknett, even while awareness around the dangers of sun-tanning has evolved and self-tanning products have improved in quality, there is still some stigma for celebrities to admit their bronzed skin is “fake.”
“A lot of celebrities and photographers and people in the public eye are very happy to tag [on Instagram] their stylist, their hairdresser, their makeup artist and the brands they’re wearing. A lot of the time, the tan or the tanner gets forgotten,” he said. “There is a bit of a stigma, like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a fake one.’ But the word ‘fake’ isn’t used [to describe] your hair and your makeup. They don’t have to have that connotation.”
Harknett hopes to see the dangers of sunbeds addressed with a ban on tanning beds in the U.K., as has been implemented in Australia. But whether it’s purchased through time or money — or one’s health — the appeal of a sun-kissed tan shows no sign of fading.
Even while many consumers have given up their tanning beds, Jaspers said the reasons why we desire a tan — real or fake — are the same as ever: “It shows health, and it shows wealth.”
