Friday March 29th, 2024
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Tans With Benefits

The Professional Tanning Studio is set to be the first tanning salon to open in Egypt, giving us the chance to get that gorgeous bronze tone without killing ourselves in the process with the sun's harmful UV rays...

Staff Writer

Tans With Benefits

Why the hell would I ever need to go to a tanning salon when I've got a mutant sun right here in Egypt and I can get my tan on anytime I damn well please, said every Egyptian ever. While that's technically true, every time you sit out in the sun for hours on end trying to get to that gorgeous Gisele-bronze colour, you're raping your skin because the sun is actually Not Your Friend.

Also, you're not going to get Gisele's colour or ever look anything like her so stop trying because you're just ruining your skin in your hopeless attempts. And yes, we're young and carefree and sun damage is something we brush off without a second thought but let's put this in terms you might pay attention to. By the time you're 35 you're going to look like a wrinkled 80-year old man and you'll wish you listened to all that advice about staying out of the sun.

And that's where tanning salons come in – specifically The Professional Tanning Studio, which will be the first ever tanning salon to open in Egypt. Essentially, with a tanning bed, you can have your cake and eat it too. Perfect tan without all the damage that the sun causes. Oh and also, it'll get you closer to that Gisele-hue you've been searching for your whole life, because it's controlled and there's a million and one shades to choose from.

So we can look like this?

Its founder, Tarek Adel, tells us that one of the main reasons he decided to open a branch of the famous franchise was due to the lack of understanding in Egypt about the extent of sun damage tanning induces.

"People here have the wrong idea about tanning," Adel explains. "They think that sitting in the sun is the best way to get tanned, which is actually extremely wrong and very dangerous." Laying out in the sun for ages causes – as we all know but ignore nevertheless because we're just geniuses like that – skin cancer and premature ageing (you're actually not meant to spend more than 20 minutes in the sun per day).

And contrary to popular myth, tanning beds eliminate the majority of the risk because you get a much lower dose of those dreaded UV rays. "Machines are safer than the sun because you can control the UV rays. And the same degree of tanning you get from around 5 days in the sun you can get from only 6 minutes on a sun bed." With a fraction of the UV rays, and, apparently, technology that helps moisturise your skin and keep it healthy.

Health benefits aside, you get a killer tan without actually killing your skin cells! "The results from a tanning bed are different because the colour is perfect," Adel says. No awkward tan lines, no bits of skin that are more burnt than others, no situation where the front half of you is all brown and your back looks like an albino. And you can choose the exact shade and degree you like; a choice that isn’t really left up to you when you're left at the sun's mercy. You either end up tomato red and in a lot of pain, or a dark Bakkar-esque shade when you were really going more for sun kissed Adriana Lima.

Because everyone's skin tones differ, tanning salons have endless varieties of lotions (that also help protect against UV rays) to suit your colour choice. "There are over a hundred different colour options available," Adel tells us, "even the ratio itself of being dark differs."

Even sunny nations like Dubai have gotten behind the whole tanning bed thing, even though they've certainly got an abundance of sunshine. So why haven’t we? Because e7na gahleen weh gayyeen men warra el gamoosa and we all insist on spending hours roasting on the beach. The Professional Tanning Studio is set to open in September, and though we've spent the last twenty odd years baking in the sun, along with every other Egyptian (with no sunscreen of course) we will definitely be giving this whole tanning bed thing a shot! 

You can check out their Facebook page here.