For a culture that strives to look past the color of one's skin, we sure do put a lot of emphasis on getting that perfect golden skin tone. Sure, the tanning industry is a huge cash cow, but did you know that there's actually a black market for tanning supplies now? Reportedly, the need to have that healthy sun-kissed look is so great that women (and more than a few men, we're sure) in the UK are actually turning to black market hormone injections to help achieve their desired shade.The hormone is called Melanotan, and the procedure consists of a round of 10 injections. According to one enthusiast: "you take an injection every day and after 10 days you have a nice tan ... and then if you want to go darker you carry on taking it for more than 10 days."
Apparently, once you've reached your desired level of tan-ness, the only tanning you need to do is shoot up once a week. Officials are obviously a little concerned about the side effects of injecting an untested and unlicensed tanning drug every week indefinitely.
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Yet, since there is very little sunshine under which to get a natural tan in England, many are apparently willing to take the risk. Are these people taking their tans a little too far?
[via LemonDrop]