Bronzers are powders that are applied like blush. Guerlain is credited with creating the category in 1984 when it introduced Terracotta Powder, which could be brushed on for an instant coppery sheen.
"Suddenly, they have the look of just coming back from St. Barth's, but really they spent the weekend at home and put on the powder," Echaudemaison said.
Meanwhile, other brands, including Lancome, are bringing out increasingly elaborate bronzing compacts that are embossed with patterns and come in multiple luminescent hues that can be used all over the body.
"Women today are on the go and they have no time or desire to sit down and sunbathe or wait overnight for a tanner to show its real color," said Gracemarie Papaleo, assistant vice president for new product development at Lancome USA. "With a bronzer, you get immediate results."
"Glow" lotions, which are moisturizers that gradually darken the skin with each use, are also a growing trend.
Jergens Natural Glow, introduced in 2005, was the first successful tanning moisturizer. Now other beauty brands are coming out with similar products based on the idea of a healthy, natural-looking glow. Ads for the new Nivea Visage Sunkissed Facial Moisturizer, for example, promise "a healthy-looking tan in just five days."
"People want to look healthy without getting sun damage, to have that same California, sun-kissed type of look like every celebrity on the red carpet," said Leigh Anne Rowinski, director of client solutions at Information Resources Inc.
But some critics worry that promoting sunless tans and glows as healthy, stylish and natural perpetuates the tan — whether cosmetic induced or sun-induced — as a beauty ideal, even as it posits pale skin as unhealthy, dull, unnatural and even passe.
"Even though a tan is now associated with pathology, it has had such a profound impact on the American psyche that to be un-tan is to look as terribly un-cool as an unplucked chicken," said Jablonski of Penn State. "People tend to think they look healthier if they have some sort of glow on their cheeks."
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine did not find that people who use self-tanners necessarily avoid UV rays. In a survey of 448 people age 18 to 30, the researchers found that young women who used sunless tanners were more likely to get sunburns and use sun beds than their peers who were not interested in self-tanning products; the results were similar to those found in studies in Australia. The researchers urged companies to include a minimum of SPF 15 sunscreen in every sunless tanning product.
In a related research project, Zeina Dajani, a medical student at Boston University, found that a number of sunless tanners that did not contain sunscreen failed to carry a warning label, mandated by the Food and Drug Administration, to indicate that the products do not protect against sunburn and other damage.
"The question is whether dermatologists should stop recommending sunless tanning products as an alternative to tanning beds and discourage the idea of a tan altogether," Dajani said.
RSS