A Great Looking Tan
It May Improve Your LOVE Life!

by Donald L. Smith

Now that we've caught your attention, you'll have to wait until the end of the article to find out if a great-looking tan can improve your love life. Don't jump ahead! The answer will make more sense if you first read the article in its entirety.

In order to answer this provocative question, we must examine history. First of all, we know that many societies throughout history have worshipped the sun as a god. And while it must be admitted that the production of vitamin D is very important from an evolutionary concept, it is equally plausible that since a tanned person looks better than a person without a tan, this factor may have been more important to these early societies.

A person who looks better has more self-esteem, and a person with high self-esteem is more likely to be more successful in social situations. Therefore, if people in these early societies observed that the individuals with a great-looking tan were more popular, it would follow that they would have to get a tan in order to compete!

OK, has the phrase "tall, pale and handsome (or beautiful)" ever been used to describe an attractive man or woman? Would the song "Girls From Ipanema" have evoked the same image if the words "tall and pale" had been used instead of "tall and tan" to describe the beautiful girls romping on the beach?

Also, we know that very few women in recorded history have been more sought after by powerful men than was Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt and Queen of the Nile from 69 B.C. to 30 B.C. She was the mistress of Julius Caesar and the wife of Marc Antony. Her charm and power over these two men was immortalized by Shakespeare in "Antony and Cleopatra" and in the movie "Cleopatra" starring Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Marc Antony.

Is it possible that a great-looking tan was the secret of her success? According to history, she was not particularly beautiful.

We also know that many people in ancient Egypt, including Cleopatra, chewed the leaves of the ami majus plant that grew along the Nile because it was reputed to help develop dark pigmentation. In 1948 it was found that the active ingredient of the ami majus plant was 8 methoxypsoralen, a potent photosensitizer that was effective in treating people with vitiligo, a disease characterized by areas of the skin without pigmentation.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Cleopatra developed a deep, dark tan. And as history reports, she had a spectacular love life! Ergo, without her tan, she would have been just another pretty face in the crowd who would have remained married to her brother. Did you know her first and second husbands really were her younger brothers? It's a fact.

Still looking for the answer? Let's move on the gladiators of ancient Rome. They trained by using a form of sunbathing called "arenation," which involved sunbathing nude on a sandy beach. Since we now know that the power of the sun is increased by the reflection off of a surface like sand, we can presume that a great-looking tan was developed as a byproduct of their workouts. It also was known that sunlight increases production of the male hormone testosterone.

Therefore, it is possible that a great-looking tan accounted for the incredible popularity of the gladiators of ancient Rome, and the lions had nothing to do with it!

Support for this premise is found today. The Australian actor Russell Crowe won the heart of his co-star, the beautiful Meg Ryan, while filming the movie "Gladiator." Could it be possible that his great-looking tan attracted her to him?

As you may have surmised, a great-looking tan may have shaped world history. Cleopatra without a tan would have been one of the crowd; a gladiator without a tan would have just been lion food.

So, the question remains: Will a great-looking tan improve YOUR love life? There's only one way to find out. Happy tanning.