THE SUN-BATHING CULT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19993, 9 November 1927, Page 14

THE SUN-BATHING CULT

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR SKINS

Will The Bronzing Persist ?

The bronzed young man has always been the envy of his fellows, and the admiration of the ladies. In countries like England, where the sight of the sun is as rare and refreshing as a flapper’s blut<h, skin lotions warranted to produce the ajmired bronze tint in one bottle only have been placed at the disposal of the young manhood of the country by chemists jealous of their nation’s reputation for looks. The young New Zealander, more fortunate in the matter of sunshine, has no ne«l of such advertising aids. He need only hie him to the beaches and invoke the aid of the actinic rays thae are so abundant during the summer months. Towards the end of summer his metamorphosis is complete. His skin is dark, shiny and tough enough to turn a spear. In colour he could maten the inhabitants of those fortunate South Sea isles where really well-dress-ed men never wear more than a door mat, a hibiscus flower and a nose ring. “Sun Worship’’ in Elfcope. The same strange yearning for a darker skin manifests itself in other countries of northern Europe- The Germans are throwing clothes and convention to the winds. Wrapped in deep Teutonic thought, and little else, they are acquiring health and muscles by numbers. The Letts of Lithuania, and the Latts of Latvia are likewise helping to create a slump in underwear and overcoats. Stripped to the buff, athletic Swedes and Norwegians are doing Swedish drill in defiance of winds that blow chill from the Poles. Finnish laundries are crying “finish,’’ for in the summer months there is nothing to launder. High in the snows of the Swiss Alps there is a large school where deformed and deceased children play around almost nude, and so win back to health and strength. Even from Russia, that paradise of the parasite, comes a report that during the last floods of the Neva many Russians took cold baths. But as these would seem to have been involuntary we must not assume that the moujik has yet decided to air, or even irrigate his skin. Woman Doing Her Bit . Although woman has been in the forefront of the revolt against clothes,

she has never let the ultra-violet rays have their way with her. She still contrives to hide a powder puff in her abbreviated garments. The tint she aims at achieving in her firm cheek appears to be a healthy glow, such as one associates with Diana (Manners, and of the Ephesians), Grace Nightingale, Queen Elizabeth, and Gertrude Edjerle. There have been no bloodless faces and blue-veined hands since swooning failed to achieve a marital interest in the arms of the young man swooned into, an/1 it was found simpler to ask for a spot than to get by the more roundabout way of throwing a fit of hysterics. Discretion is now the part of pallor. In complexions, as iw clothes, woman is swayed by the fashions. Since the publication of a certain book there has been a perceptible trend in some quarters towards blondness- Heavy sales of H 202 are reported' from America. Fortunately our girls use hydrogen peroxide exclusively for cleaning the teeth. On the whole, it cannot be gainsaid that woman is doing her bit to add to the increasing browness of the race. The number of girls who go down to the sea in slips and stay there for hours proves that. The Coloured Races. While this is going on, the American negro is frantically buying up nostrums that claim to bleach his skin, and lotions that are supposed to take the kink out of his hair. He hates to be jet black more than the white man hates to be dead white. At the same time it would not be correct to say that he would sooner be a dead white than a live black. In countries like Egypt the well-to-do merchant is carrying on the battle against sunburn as waged by his ancestors since ttie time of Tut. He refuses to walk a step in the heat of the sun unless seated on the back of a donkey and protected by an umbrella as big as a bell tent. The Indian nabob has no use at all for the ultra-violet rays. It would be a vain thing to ask him to go out in heat that would fairly make your eyebrows crawl, and start chucking double somersaults for the sake of his health. The joy of running five miles at noontide on the balls of the feet, and taking deep breaths in a bazaar rendered fragrant by a multitude of coolies, camels and cesspools, would not touch

his heathen soul. He prefers localised corpulence, forty winks and a punkah to health and vigor bought at such a price. Once it was the Oriental who was the sun worshipper. Now it is the Gorman who reverently discards his Oxford bags and makes his obeisance to the sun god by means of two dozen doubleknee bends, followed by sideways twisting, with arms raising and deep breathing. What Does it Mean? What does it all mean! Ls it an effort of Nature to achieve a levcllinglip of colour among the races of the world? Shall we end by all being yeilow or piebald? It is not likely. The movement in North Europe is not exactly widespread, but is confined largely to athletics, school children and physical culturists. It may prove to be only a passing craze— part of the great physical culture, sport and out-of-doors movement that has sprung up since the armistice, and that would appear to be a natural swing back after the nerve-racking and debilitating great war. Moreover, the sun in those latitudes is weak and vacillating; its kiss no more than a gentle brushing of the lips. What of Australia? But what of northern Australia, where it is a playful bite that will tear strips of skin a foot long from the body of the incautious basker? The immunity conferred! by a coffee-coloured pelt is only obtained by many hours of exposure- The interesting point about it is that a trace of pronounced sunburn will linger years after sun bathing has been discontinued. After ten dr fifteen years of continuous summer sun bathing, a person acquires a definitely darker colour, with correspondingly increased powers of resistance to light and heat. The children of such persons will inherit this acquired resistance ano this darker tint. It will only be slight, of course, but that it is going on cannot bo doubted. We are already browner of skin, darker of hair and eye, than the natives of Great Britain. We stand heat better. Influence of Clothes. Much seems to depend on clothes. Races which completely clothe the body are never “coloured.” Ruces which do not, even in temperate zones like North America, have dark-pigmented skins. Many a Persian is pale, many a Tibetan, living amongst almost perpetual snows, almost black. The Persian wears voluminous clothes, and the Tibetan, strangely enough, trusts in his skin and two or three overlays o* natural dirt, to keep out the cold, it makes ono wonder, though, what changes the years will bring to the inhabitants of Queensland, where men work in strong light and sunshine clad above the waist only in singlets which often are penetrable by the sun’s rays.