Tanning Pills

If you are wondering how to get a suntan you may be tempted to turn to sunless tanning pills for an effortless tan. Tanning pills are controversial and thought to be unsafe. The FDA, in fact, has not approved most tanning pills, and they can be difficult to get in the U.S. Besides some severe side effects, these pills may not even work at all, depending on the brand used.

The ingredients of tanning pills vary, and in many instances, there is no clear ingredient breakdown on the label. Self tan pills generally contain either caretenoid pigments or tyrosine, or they will prove to be nothing more than hyped up multi vitamins. Other ingredients vary from pill to pill, and often they are nothing more than nutritional supplements. The pills work by altering the skin's pigmentation, though not always in the way one would expect or desire for a tan. Some simply turn the skin orange rather than tan. Others end up with the pigment placed unexpectedly in the body, producing less-than-perfect results.

Caretenoid tanning pills work by depositing pigment in fat layers just under the skin, which colours it. Unfortunately, the amount of these substances that are required to be taken is high enough as to have been deemed unsafe by the FDA.

Tyrosine, another base for sunless tanning pills, is a non-essential amino acid that helps skin cells produce melanin. There's no need to supplement for it, which means that pills containing tyrosine are not up to their manufacturers' claims.

While having a great tan without effort and risk of skin damage can be a wonderful feeling, and while the convenience of a sunless tan can be immense, there are some methods that are just not worth the risks to tanners' health. Sunless tanning pills would be one of these methods. If you are deciding how to get an effortless tan you would do well to look elsewhere for that golden glow.

3 Types Of Tanning Pills

Tanning pills come in three varieties: Those that contain caretenoid pigments, those that contain tyrosine, and those that contain practically nothing at all.

They "work" in entirely different ways. Caretenoid pills contain a pigment (the same thing that makes carrots orange and shrimp pink) which, when taken internally, is deposited in the tissues of the body.

The caretenoids saturate the fat layers just below the skin, which appears to give the skin color.

The Food and Drug Administration concluded that taking caretenoids in the quantity sufficient to create a "tan" was dangerous, and pills for this purpose were banned for sale in the U.S.

Caretenoids come in many different forms. The best known is canthaxanthin, followed closely by beta carotene. But the manufacturers of tanning pills are on top of things: as soon as one caretenoid is discredited, they pop up with another. Lycopene is their latest gimmick.

Caretenoid pills do change the visible color of the skin. Because you have no control over where your body deposits the pigment, however, the results may not be pleasing. People have protective pads of fat on the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, those areas tend to turn bright orange — and stay that way for months.

The other two types of tanning pills contain no pigments and will not give you a tan.

Be warned that the manufacturers of tanning pills can be quite tricky. They frequently blur the distinction between the caretenoid and the non caretenoid pill. Beta carotene in particular is frequently passed off as a "nutritional supplement" that "promotes" tanning. It is not at all unusual for tanning pills to contain tyrosine and a caretenoid ingredient.