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.

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]