Sunburn or Tan?

Mostly just tan, it has to be pretty prolonged exposure for me to burn. Somewhat surprising cause I am pretty pale.

Worst sunburn was one I got on my face, on part of my forehead and cheek areas on either side of my nose. It wasn't like some 2nd degree scarring burn but it was enough to be really annoying when I scrunched up my face at all to do anything like eating, and it was hideous looking when it started to peel some time later. As a result of the peeling from a shortish distance away it looked like I had gross white blotchy stains on my face from stuff I don't think I need to mention explicitly to anyone old enough to get what I am saying here. It was gross. I prefer rainy days.

 

I tend to tan, usually - unless it's around my nose, then I'll start peeling like mad.
I don't know how or when this happened, but my lower arms are tanned yet my upper arms aren't. I want to guess that it was a long time ago when I did put sunscreen on, but I was out for almost the whole day. Nowadays I don't use sunscreen because I'm not outside for prolonged periods of time - and therefore, neither burning nor tanning is a large issue.

Oh my, this is a hilarious story, and it has nothing to do with sunburn.
So why am I sharing it? It's hilarious; that's why.

This happened when I was taking a chemistry class many years ago. (I want to say it was at least 5 years ago? I know it was early in my college days but that's all I remember time-wise.) It involved preparing a solution in a beaker (or it might have been just water, I'm not sure) up to 350C or so. The precise number doesn't matter, but it was pretty freaking hot and that's all you need to know.

To heat up the beaker in this case, we had to use a ring stand combined with a Bunsen burner, because the college was cheap when it came to chemistry kits. They worked, for sure - they just weren't the best quality. And because of that, the thermometers and the Bunsen burners were occasionally slow and unresponsive.

So it's fifteen minutes in and the solution is only simmering. The thermometer has only slightly moved and I wonder if anything is happening at all. I want to test how hot it actually is, but I can't just touch the beaker outright; I'll probably scald my finger or hand. So to be safe, I touch a part of the ring stand with the tip of my pinky finger.

Of course, I completely forgot that metal conducts heat far better than glass, I whisper "oh, shit!" and run over to the sink, where I run my pinky under cold water for 15 minutes. My lab partner supervised the experiment in my stead, and after hearing what I did...well, he laughed, and rightly so. (It was basically like touching a recently-used stove - something else you're never supposed to do - but on a smaller scale.)

My pinky still stung for the rest of the day after that. Moral of the story: Never forget your chemistry lab safety videos, and metal conducts heat amazingly well.

 

I burn and then transform into a lobster and move to join my brethren.
But really, even with sunscreen, I manage to burn, it's worst on my shoulders ;_;

 

I used to be able to tan pretty well, but in the past few years, it seems to have become impossible for me... I can sit outside all I want but all I do is burn. Damn...
I guess it must be because I spend quite a lot of time indoors these days, and as a result, I'm pretty pale. although I'm still not a fan of the "sit inside much and become pale" theory, my gut feeling tells me there's more to it

 

The Australian sun sets the scene for many sunburns and tans. Because my sister's and I's background are of a Lebanese (Middle Eastern) descent, we have a fairly olive and pale skin. I somehow never get tanned though, only small sunburns. I've spent seven weeks overseas a short while ago and I came back to Australia without a single trace of tan, even though we live right in front of the beach. The bad thing, however, is that instead of a tan or a sunburn, my skin peels a lot and it get really annoying in bed.

My worst experience with a sunburn would have to be when I was young and forgot to apply sunscreen one day at home in the pool. The sun was bearing it's powerful rays and the temperature outside was 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). I swam for about two hours and came out red.