What Tanmaxxing Is Actually Doing to Your Skin

Your feed is full of bronzed shoulders, tan lines and captions about going out tan rather than pale. Canadian dermatologists have been watching the trend build all summer, and this month they said publicly that years of sun-safety progress are sliding backwards.

Tanmaxxing is the TikTok name for deliberately maximizing sun exposure with little or no sunscreen. In reporting published on 1 August, The Canadian Press spoke to Toronto dermatologist Dr. Julia Carroll, who chairs the sun awareness working group at the Canadian Dermatology Association. She described patients showing her texts from their teenage daughters asking to skip school because the UV index was high and they wanted to go home and tan.

Why Are Young Canadians Tanning Again This Summer?

The gap between what they know and what they do is the whole story of young Canadians tanning. In an Ipsos poll for the Canadian Dermatology Association in April, 79 percent of 1,000 Gen Z Canadians said they were concerned about skin cancer and 63 percent knew tanning raises the risk. Almost 40 percent had still tanned deliberately in the past year, and while 81 percent follow a skincare routine, only 22 percent use sunscreen year-round.

Misinformation fills the rest of the gap, and tanmaxxing content carries a lot of it. A 2025 American Academy of Dermatology survey found nearly 60 percent of Gen Z adults believed common tanning myths, including the idea that a base tan prevents sunburn. It does not. Dermatologists put the protection a tan offers at roughly SPF 4, against the SPF 30 minimum they recommend.

The numbers show where this goes. The Canadian Cancer Society estimated about 11,300 new melanoma diagnoses in Canada in 2024, a 17 percent rise on the year before, and Melanoma Canada notes that melanoma is among the most common cancers in adults aged 15 to 49. CTV News reported in June that Canadian dermatologists are seeing skin cancers in patients in their twenties.

What Does UV Damage to Skin Cells Actually Involve?

A tan is a stress response, not a glow. When ultraviolet light damages the DNA in your skin, your cells produce extra melanin as shielding, so the colour you are chasing is the visible signal that injury has already happened.

The evidence on UV damage to skin cells sharpened last December. Researchers at Northwestern Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco published a study in Science Advances that sequenced 182 melanocytes, the pigment-producing cells where melanoma begins. Cells from tanning bed users carried nearly twice as many mutations as those from people who had never used one, and were likelier to carry the mutations specifically linked to melanoma.

What surprised the researchers was where the damage turned up. Mutations appeared on skin that rarely sees the sun, including the lower back, suggesting tanning beds create a far broader field of DNA injury than outdoor exposure. Melanoma was diagnosed in 5.1 percent of tanning bed users against 2.1 percent of non-users, a 2.85-fold increase in risk once age, sex, sunburn history and family history were accounted for.

How Serious Are Tanning Bed Risks Compared With the Sun?

Riskier, by a wide margin. The World Health Organization's cancer agency classifies UV-emitting tanning devices as carcinogenic to humans, the same category as tobacco and asbestos, and the beds can emit as much as 15 times the ultraviolet radiation of direct sunlight. That is the core of the tanning bed risks picture.

Age is the aggravating factor. The American Academy of Dermatology reports that using tanning beds before age 20 can raise your chance of developing melanoma by 47 percent, with risk climbing on each use. Canadian research published in March 2026 found people who started indoor tanning before 25 were diagnosed with melanoma roughly 17 years earlier than those who started later.

Policy has split. The US Food and Drug Administration withdrew a proposed rule in March that would have barred under-18s nationwide, leaving a state-by-state patchwork. Canada moved earlier, and provinces including Ontario have prohibited tanning bed use by minors since 2014.

Can Safer Alternatives to Tanning Give You the Same Look?

Yes, and this is where dermatologists are most practical. The safer alternatives to tanning are self-tanners, spray tans and tinted sunscreens, none of which mutate your DNA to produce colour, plus body oils and shimmer for the same finish without the exposure.

If you are outside anyway, the basics hold. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen of at least SPF 30 and reapply every two hours, more often after swimming or heavy sweating. Hats and UV-protective clothing help without replacing it. The Canadian Cancer Society advises limiting sun between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., or whenever the UV index reads 3 or higher, which is also when heat illness risk climbs and when your body loses fluid fastest.

When Should You Get a Mole Checked?

The other half of protection is watching what is already on your skin. The rule for when to get a mole checked is change. A mole that is growing, darkening, developing an uneven border or behaving differently from the ones around it should be looked at rather than monitored at home.

Caught early, melanoma is highly treatable, and the signs that do not look like the textbook pictures are the ones most often missed.

Frequently Asked Questions About Tanning and Skin Cancer

What is tanmaxxing?

Tanmaxxing is a social media trend, popular on TikTok among teenagers and young adults, that involves deliberately maximizing sun exposure with little or no sunscreen in order to tan as deeply as possible. It is a subset of the wider looksmaxxing trend. Dermatologists warn it delivers concentrated ultraviolet damage during peak UV hours.

Is tanning bad for your skin even without burning?

Yes. A tan is your skin producing extra melanin in response to DNA damage that has already occurred, so colour change without a burn still means injury. Cumulative UV exposure drives both premature ageing and skin cancer risk. Dermatologists are consistent that there is no safe way to tan.

Are tanning beds safer than the sun?

No. Tanning beds can emit up to 15 times the ultraviolet radiation of direct sunlight, and the World Health Organization classifies them as carcinogenic to humans. Research published in December 2025 found tanning bed users carried nearly double the DNA mutations of non-users and had close to triple the melanoma risk.

Does a base tan protect you from sunburn?

No, and this is one of the most persistent myths online. Dermatologists estimate the protection a tan provides at roughly SPF 4, well below the SPF 30 minimum recommended for meaningful protection. Building a base tan simply adds UV damage before the exposure you were trying to prepare for.

What Should You Do Next?

No tan leaves your skin undamaged, though you can absolutely get the look without the risk. If a mole has changed, or nobody has examined your skin in a while, you can find and book a dermatology clinic near you on Medimap.

For more on skin, sun and summer health, visit the Medimap Health Hub.