Grab the sunscreen, the tan is fading

The traditional hottest souvenir to bring back from summer vacation--the tan--is fading. Literally. It seems fashion is finally catching up to years of health reports contradicting the belief that the "healthy glow" received from the sun is in fact healthy. Ten-minute sessions thoroughly applying sunscreen now are replacing the 10-minute sessions in the tanning bed of years past. So time-wise it may be a wash, but skin-wise it's progress. Even fake glows, kindly courtesy of sunless tanners or the wonders of the Fantasy Tan, are toning down to appear safely fake.

In a recent trip to the Estée Lauder counter of my hometown Saks, my consultant kindly advised me to switch from my favorite dark bronzer to the next shade down.

"No one wants to look like they're frying their skin anymore," she whispered candidly over the counter. "Even if the closest that they get to sun is a compact and a powder brush."

My fantasy tanner said the same thing, over one of those awkward I'm-just-wearing-a-paper-thong-and-you-are-asking-me-to-spread-my-legs sessions. As she was lightly spraying me with the cold mist, I asked that she make the area darker.

"I'm not sending you out of here so people will think you could audition for the old lady in There's Something about Mary," she scolded. I took that as a no.

Today's goal is to appear as though you were lightly kissed by the sun, as opposed to a full make-out session with it. And fittingly, those who look like they have been sleeping in the sun look, well, cheap. As I sat on the wharf in Newport this weekend--under a big umbrella and sugarcoated in SPF-20 sunblock--I quietly observed the occasional tragedy of the sun-bitten tourist who had whored the future of her skin out for the delicious pleasure of a tan today. Only today--a beautiful July Saturday in 2003--the tan looked less delicious and more vicious. It marked its wearer as ignorant and the last on board with the knowledge that the trend Coco Chanel imported 70 years ago was finalizing its visa to be deported out.

Models now are demonstrating that fairer is fairer. Porcelain-skinned red-headed models prove the beauty of sun virginity. In its Demi-plastered issue, Vogue noted the swaying trend to visibly healthier skin. Even the bangs of this season provide protection from the sun.

Even more powerful are the spot-checks most of us should be beginning right now. I had my first this May, where I had the distinct privilege of stripping down to my Cosabellas and having someone point out my every imperfection. If that ain't motivation to swear off the sun, I don't know what is. Except a biopsy report with deadly news (thankfully I had caught mine in time).

What all this means to me is that I need a new driver's license picture. On my current one, I literally look like a blonde Beyonce Knowles, back from a summer of frying my skin in Spain. Now that I am actually legal, I am retaking my picture so the George's bouncer will not doubt that the picture and the new paler me are one and the same.