The Disturbing Thing Women Are Searching for Online

Searches for "indoor tanning" are up a whopping 1300 percent this month compared to last month, according to a report Cosmo obtained from Yahoo! Search. And based on historical data, fake bake searches will spike even more as we get closer to the winter months. One-third of the users searching for "tanning" are under 24, another 27 percent are aged 25-34, and 65 percent are females. And get this: there's even been a spike in people looking for "tanning beds for sale" online.


By Zoe Ruderman

This is really concerning, considering that using a tanning bed or booth even once before you hit your 30th birthday increases your skin-cancer risk by 75 percent. Research also shows that exposure to UV light in your teens and/or 20s can lead to melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, which is also the second the most prevalent cancer in women in their 20s and 30s.

The majority of searches are out of California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia.

Not all of the data in the report was negative, though. Yahoo! shared with us that searches for "tanning bed dangers", "spray tanning", and "sunless tanning" are all growing. That's what we like to see, ladies!

As more and more people read about Cosmo's Practice Safe Sun campaign (and check out our just-launched microsite dedicated to the cause!), we hope to see a drop in the number of women looking up places to indoor tan or booths and beds to buy. And you can help out by sharing some of these stories with your friends who still tan.