The Council states that “sunbathe sensibly and in moderation. As yet, [...]]]>

The Health Council expresses major reservations concerning the decision recently taken by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to raise the category of UV-radiation and solariums to cancer risk category one and says that the supporting scientific documents provide no basis for this.

The Council states that “sunbathe sensibly and in moderation. As yet, there is no justification for making a distinction between sunbathing and the use of sunbeds” and continues in its letter to the Dutch Ministry which deals with health and consumer protection, that “it is not possible to state with certainty that the use of sunbeds is responsible for an increased incidence of melanomas”.  In the statement the scientists belonging to the high-ranking panel also explain the positive effects of sufficiently supplying the human body with vitamin D pruduced in skin stimulated by UV radiation.

The Dutch Health Council is the Netherland’s most important scientific panel in the domain of health. Its studies, statements, and recommendations often form the basis for legislative proposals.

The letter from the Health Council of the Netherlands can be downloaded HERE

Reading this book will give another perspective to the present fanatic campaign against sunlight driven by the World Health Organisation and sponsored by large manufacturers of cosmetics for sun-protection.  It makes you wonder if this organisation [...]]]>

Anyone who still have any doubts of the healing and preventing powers of sunlight (inclusive UV-light) should read this book.

Reading this book will give another perspective to the present fanatic campaign against sunlight driven by the World Health Organisation and sponsored by large manufacturers of cosmetics for sun-protection.  It makes you wonder if this organisation really is serving us with the best advice on how to live a healthy life.

Here is an example of pictures from the book:

Here is what it says on the backside:

The human race evolved under the sun, and for thousands of years lived in harmony with its heat and light. Yet over the last fifty years we have lost this close contact with the sun and its healing powers. We have become afraid of it.

However the sun is central to our well being and health. Did you know that:
• designing and building sunlit houses can help prevent disease, make us feel happier and save energy
• sunlight can help prevent and heal many common and often fatal diseases like breast cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis
• before antibiotics, sunlight was used successfully to speed up the healing of wounds
• tanning moderately throughout the year is better than avoiding the sun altogether
• sudden bursts of strong solar radiation are unnatural and dangerous, protection needs to be built up slowly
• early morning sunlight in cool temperatures is particularly beneficial to the body
• sunlit hospital rooms provide a better environment for the treatment of clinically depressed people
• prolonged exposure to artificial light puts the body under great stress
• large numbers of people may be compromising their health through sunlight deficiency
• there is a substantial body of historical and contemporary evidence that suggests moderate sunbathing is far more beneficial than we are currently led to believe

The light and heat from the sun are indispensable to all nature. Humanity is also part of nature and needs sunlight for health and well being, for vitality and happiness. This book explains how and why we should welcome sunlight back into our lives — safely! It shows how sunlight was used to prevent and cure diseases in the past, and how it can heal us and help us in the future.

Richard Hobday, MSc, PhD is a member of the British Register of Complementary Practitioners and has studied traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese exercise systems in China. Dr. Hobday has many years experience of solar design in buildings and is a leading authority on the history of sunlight therapy.

You can get it from Amazon through this link:

Healing Sun: Sunshine and Health in the 21st Century

! Reduce the risk of getting more than 60 different kinds of diseases among them:

! Be available free during at least 6 months and through safe technology the rest [...]]]>

What if a “WONDER-DRUG” existed, that would:

! Reduce the risk of getting more than 60 different kinds of diseases among them:

• Most kind of cancers (inclusive skin-cancer (Melanoma))
• Heart Disease
• Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
• Type 1 Diabetes
• Tuberculosis (TB)
• Rickets (low bone-density)

! Be available free during at least 6 months and through safe technology the rest of the year

! Have serious side effects only if:

• Overdosing or not following the recommendations “on the package”.
• Taken by individuals with skin-type I or with a large amount (>100) of “liver-spots” on their body.

This “miracle-drug” would also:

! Make calcifications, hardening and stiffening of your blood vessels disappear.

! Make your immune system work at optimal efficiency, enough to fight off infections like the common cold and seasonal flu-epidemics.

! Strengthen your teeth

! Raise your mood

! Strengthen your muscles

! Improve your metabolism

WOULDN’T EVERYONE WANT TO USE SUCH A DRUG?

THE FACT IS THAT THIS “DRUG” EXISTS. IT IS CALLED UVB AND YOU CAN GET IT FROM THE SUN AND FROM LAMPS IN A SOLARIUM.

UVB RAYS ON NAKED SKIN IS BY FAR THE BEST AND SAFEST WAY FOR THE BODY TO CREATE VITAMIN-D, THE HORMONE PROVED TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE THE RISK FOR, AND EVEN REMEDY, MOST HUMAN DISEASES.

Still more than 80% of the world’s population living above the latitude of 40 degree is Vitamin-D deficient most of the year.

Why?

Because:

The discovery of penicillin and other chemically manufactured drugs plus the fanatic fear-driven propaganda against sunlight with the purpose of selling chemical sunscreen lotions, have made us forget the wisdom and knowledge collected by our ancestors since the beginning of humankind, namely that the sun is necessary for all life on Earth, and that Man is no exclusion.

In 1903, just a little bit more than 100 years ago, the Nobel-prize for Medicine was awarded to the Danish doctor Niels Finsen for his work with treating tuberculosis with UV-light. Even until the fifties, sunlight was considered as an important medical cure and hospitals were constructed with this in the mind of the architects.

However, sunshine is free and when confronted with huge commercial interests, the voices of its few defenders were easily silenced by the manipulating marketing loudspeakers from large, multinational, chemical drug- and sunscreen- companies.

The “re-discovery” of the ancient knowledge of UV-light‘s healing power is although gaining more and more momentum, again supported by scientifically obtained proof.

Unfortunately, politicians in many countries are still leaning on the dubious results from narrow researches of which some could be considered to be scientific fraud (since they are omitting contradictory facts) when they are making legislations that are very counter-productive towards common health. Such legislation and regulations are costing tax-payers billions of dollars in the, often unsuccessful, caring of diseases that could be cured simply by restoring the usage of UV-light where it belongs in medical health-care, either provided free from the sun or from inexpensive and easily available technology (solariums).

The ignorance (or, even worse, commercial interests) that are “keeping us in the dark” will of course be defeated by common sense supported by proof from recent real scientific medical research. Research that is “sponsored” by the genuine understanding and feeling among the “grassroots” about the need for sunlight for life on Earth. The question is how much more suffering we have to withstand before the ignorance among legislators will be shattered.

You can join this grass-root-movement in many ways. One is to leave your comments (support or objections) to this post. Another is to inform yourself better not by trusting twisted media reports from flawed research, but by your own investigations and by spreading your findings. Some good places for getting real information are:

www.sunarc.org

www.sunlightresearchforum.eu

www.vitamindcouncil.org

www.mercola.com

www.naturalnews.com/Vitamin_D.html

www.uvadvantage.org

Press the “Play”-button below and listen to an interview with Lewis made in a car on the way to the exhibition “Intercharm”.

Download audio file (Lewis_Henry_28Oct09.mp3)

The Tanning Guru (right) interviews Lewis Henry, President [...]]]>

Lewis Henry, President of Devoted Creations, has been on a visit to Moscow hosted by his distributor there, Aroga/Solana.

Press the “Play”-button below and listen to an interview with Lewis made in a car on the way to the exhibition “Intercharm”.

The Tanning Guru (right) interviews Lewis Henry, President Devoted Creations (left) in Moscow

Read on and I [...]]]>

Of course you know that you will get a better color when tanning in a solarium (and also outdoors) if you use a lotion than if you are tanning without. But do you really know what you are putting on your skin and what makes a good lotion a good lotion?

Read on and I will reveal to you the secrets hidden by most lotion-makers. Secrets that will guide you next time you are buying a lotion either for using yourself or for sale in your salon.I am sure you have some time wondered about the huge different in price between different lotions. And maybe asked the question: Is an expensive lotion really better then a cheap one?

The answer is: YES, but sometimes the difference in price doesn’t correspond to the difference in quality. Let us look at how the price of a lotion is made up and see what secrets are hidden behind the price tag.

The price of a lotion is decided by the following factors:
1. Cost of Design, Ingredients and manufacturing.
2. Cost of Marketing and Branding
3. Cost of Distribution

And here is the first secret: The real quality of a lotion is decided only by the first part – Cost of design, ingredients and manufacturing. OK you can always argue that a known brand adds a psychological “quality-value” to the price, but this is only a perceived value, not a real one.

Does this mean that the two other cost-items are without value? – No, of course not. If you are running a tanning business you need a chain of distribution in order to get the lotions to your salon. And you need some marketing in order to make your chosen lotions known among your customers. You just want to feel certain that the marketing and distribution costs outside of your control are optimized for your needs, because I am sure you are not very interested in paying for a large, sometimes world-wide, overhead which doesn’t benefit your local business.

Now, let’s have a more detailed look at the first part of the costs, the design, ingredients and manufacturing, which, according to experts, makes up not more than about 10% of the total retail price. It is here we will find more secrets, well protected by most makers of lotions.

In order to reveal those secrets, we must look a little bit closer on the list of ingredients. Here are some basic principles:

Regulations in most countries demand the list of ingredients to start with the one that makes up the largest part of the content and finish with the one with the smallest percentage.

Take a look at the list of ingredients on the lotions on your shelf (or in the shelf of any store selling lotions) and you will most likely see “Water (Aqua)” as the first ingredient listed. This means that you are holding in your hand a lotion based on water and – here is a secret – If “Water” comes first in the ingredient-list there are at least 50% and very often (for cheaper lotions) more than 80% water in the formula! The cheaper the lotion – the more water.

After water in the list of ingredients, you will probably find a long list of difficult to pronounce chemical names and only towards the very end there will be some words you might recognize from the kingdom of plants. Those are normally the “active” skin- and tan- care ingredients. And here is another, well-kept, secret: The percentage of active ingredients in lotions is rarely above 15% and most often below 5%! And again, the cheaper the lotion the less portion of active ingredients.

This leads to the question “What am I really paying for when I buy a lotion?” If you buy a lotion based on water, the answer is – mainly water. You pay only a small part of the total price for the active skin- and tan-care ingredients. Here are some examples:

Lotion 1 (a premium brand professional skin-care body-lotion, not optimized for tanning):
Volume:200mL; Retail price: 82€; Active ingredients:6.45%; price per mL active ingredients:6.36€

Lotion 2 a) (a premium brand tanning lotion from USA), a) (when sold in Europe)
Volume:200mL; Retail price: 120€; Active ingredients:14%; price per mL active ingredients:5.00€

Lotion 2.b) (same as 2.a but sold in USA) (Here you see the effect of expensive distribution!)
Volume:200mL; Retail price: 60€; Active ingredients:14%; price per mL active ingredients:2.50€

Lotion 3 (a cheap European tanning lotion)
Volume:200mL; Retail price:15€; Active ingredients:3%; price per mL active ingredients:2.50€

But, you might now think, if those are the facts for most lotions, from premium as well as low-cost brands, how can I find the best lotions and how can I “see-through” the marketing-hype that surrounds every brand?

To answer that, let’s have a look at

Lotion 4 (a premium brand lotion from USA based on Aloe-Vera and with optimal distribution cost):
Volume:200mL; Retail price: 87€; Active ingredients:62%; price per mL active ingredients:0.70€

or

Lotion 5 (a less expensive lotion from USA based on Aloe-Vera and with optimal distribution cost):
Volume:200mL; Retail price: 20€; Active ingredients:87%; price per mL active ingredients:<0.12€

So here is another secret revealed – A really good tanning lotion is based on Aloe-Vera, one of Mother Nature’s best moisturizers. This also means a dramatic difference in the price you pay for active ingredients and turns even a seemingly expensive lotion into a bargain.

As salon-owner you might now say: “This sounds good, but if I and my customers are happy with the lotions I sell today, why should I change?”

Yes, agreed, most people are satisfied with status quo as long as they haven’t tried something better.

So let us therefore summarize the options you, as business-owner, have:

1) A European lotion which contains less than 4% active skin- and tan-care ingredients for some 15€ per bottle (~2.50€ per mL active ingredients). This or a similar kind of lotion is also sold by most of your competitors and doesn’t give you much profit per bottle/packet.

2) An American lotion containing from 5 to 15% active skin- and tan- care ingredients for 30 – 140€ per bottle (~5.00€ per mL active ingredients). Such lotion might be considered very “high-end” in Europe because of a price inflated by an unreasonable high distributor mark-up, but is, when comparing its price in USA, not very special. Even if you sell less amount of this lotion you will although make more profit from each sale than from lotions in the first group above. But your profit margin is probably not very high.

or

3) An American brand of lotions containing more than 60% active skin- and tan- care ingredients for 20 – 86€ per bottle or 2.80 – 6.80€ per packet (less than 0.70€ per mL active ingredients in the bottle). Because of their high quality, those lotions will also feel better to use and to sell than any other lotion. Due to less competition and a large different between your purchase- and sales-prices, they will also give your salon the best profit.

Obviously, if you and your customers value good skin- and tan- care, choosing the last option ought to be easy.

Now you might ask: “Why should I buy an American lotion when I can buy those made in Europe and maybe even here in my own country, so much cheaper?”

In case this question not already has been answered above, let’s look at some other facts.

The market for tanning lotions in USA is more than 10 times larger than in Europe. Most producers in USA make large volumes and benefits from volume-of-scale cost-savings.

Unfortunately for the European tanners who care about their skin, the markets for tanning lotions in North-America and Europe have developed in two different directions. In USA and Canada, most tanners still demand, and are ready to pay for, lotions with a rather high content of skin-care. In Europe on the other hand, lotion-manufacturers are pushing lower and lower prices, which, by default, means less and less amount of good skin-caring ingredients. And that is why no European brand has been really successful in USA.

You are proud of your salon and want to offer the best products but today you offer cheap, low quality lotions. It is like being a Mercedes dealer but only offering accessories made for Trabants or Russian Ladas.

If you see the promotions for cheap European lotions, of course they don’t advertise that their products mainly contain water and that the share of active skin- and tan-care ingredients in most lotions is less than 4%. Instead you see phrases like “With 12 different bronzers!” or “With powerful antioxidants for maximum skin-care”, which hopefully is true but you will not see is what ought to be the continuing: “Which makes up only 0.05% of the total amount of ingredients“.

If you break the habit and try a better lotion, you will soon see the difference in results. Skin will be better moisturized and signs of aging reduced. Tan will appear faster and stay longer. After you have put on a good lotion, you will not feel like you immediately want to run to the shower and wash it off. You and your customers will feel the change and if you are a salon-owner, you will attract new satisfied customers and your business will flourish.

Where then to find such good lotions to prices that doesn’t carry the heavy load of cost added by greedy distributors?

This is exactly why I created Lotionsdirect. Seeing how, often unreasonable, costs added by several layers of European distributors, doubles the prices of good quality American lotions, I decided to offer a new model, the FIRST OF ITS KIND IN EUROPE.

The business model of Lotionsdirect is aimed at minimizing the distribution cost and, by doing so, leaving more profit to the final point-of-sale (your salon) while being able to keep the same (or even lower) retail prices as in the USA.

Of course, in order to benefit from Lotionsdirect’s distribution model, you might have to get used to some new routines:

1. Lotionsdirect is not employing sales-people who will visit you regularly and invite you for dinners and parties. In that sense we are a little bit like the furniture-shop IKEA, you will do some work yourself but we will provide you with all the necessary tools and you will benefit from our cost savings.

2. Delivery times might be somewhat longer than you are used to from a local distributor. Maximum a week from payment until you will have the shipment at your door. Shipments are although free, we always have fresh products in stock and you can order any amount you want.

3. Since the working languages in Lotionsdirect are English and Swedish, I have to rely on translators when communicating in other tongues. This will cause a slight delay in communication, but all your questions can be put, and will always be answered, in a language you master.

4. Purchase from Lotionsdirect in a country outside the “Euro-zone” means a currency transaction (our prices are in Euros) when paying either via your bank, with Credit Card or via PayPal. However, for orders above 500 Euros, paid by bank-transfer, you will get a voucher worth 35 Euros (which equals the maximum bank-transfer fee) to be deducted from your next order.

Finally, some lines about the lotions you will find in Lotionsdirect. When deciding the business model, I wanted to be able to offer the very best of lotions. After an evaluation period of several months, during which I, my colleagues, friends and “friendly customers” in some countries, tried most of the high quality lotions that are offered on the market today, we made the following conclusions:

1. The lotion we needed should be based on Aloe-Vera, not on water. This actually narrowed down the choice to only a handful of brands, all from USA.

2. The manufacturer should be reliable, experienced, have a good reputation, use only the best ingredients (not tested on animals and in general environmental friendly), offer a wide choice of lotions and be ready to support the business model of Lotionsdirect in Europe with high volumes.

In the end there was only one manufacturer who fulfilled all of those demands – Devoted Creations from “the sunny state” Florida.

After more than one year of cooperation, I am convinced that we made the right choice. Everyone who tries the lotions from Devoted Creations loves them and is soon finding favorites in the wide assortment. The only negative comment I have got so far is that there are so many lotions that it is difficult to chose. We are therefore creating additional and better information materials (e.g. the “Lotion Adviser”) that will make it easier to select the right lotion for each user.

So don’t wait – if you are not yet a member, join Lotionsdirect today and start to take advantage of the unique business-model which gives your salon the profit from our cost-savings. Open your computer’s Internet-browser and go to: www.lotionsdirect.biz. Select your language by clicking a flag, register your salon, and start browsing the manifold lotions from Devoted Creations. (And then you will also see that Devoted Creations, as one of very few, if not the only, manufacturer who is willing and even proud to disclose the full list of ingredients of every lotion on Internet).

In addition to our permanently low prices, we also have special offers, some permanent (like the “Super Value Deal” and other packages) and some valid for certain periods. Using those offers will give you even better profit.

If you are not already in our register already, please also note that there is a package worth more than 50€ waiting to be delivered to your salon directly after registration and your first order of minimum 100€.

This announcement created a new wave of articles [...]]]>

In July 2009 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an Agency organized within UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), announced through The Lancet Oncology medical journal and press-releases, the “breaking news”  about the classification of ‘the use of UV-emitting tanning devices to Group 1, “carcinogenic to humans”’.

This announcement created a new wave of articles and reports in many newspapers, magazines, journals and TV-channels around the world.  Many of the articles and reports went far beyond the original source in the reporters’ eagerness to create a “sensation” from this “news”.  None of the reporters seem to have bothered to go beyond the press-release, but if they would have done that they would have discovered the following facts:

First - the decision is not built upon any new research but on a review from July 2006 of different researches made during 1990-and early 2000.  A closer look at the method of this review (a good starting point is this page: http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/2009/sunbeds_uvradiation.php) shows that it was conducted more or less like an Internet search among scientific papers and by using the key search-words “artificial UV” • “sunbeds” • “melanoma” • “skin cancer”.  It is therefore no surprise that the “review” came up with a lot of “evidence” for a strong correlation between those search-words. It is almost like a search with the key words “water” and “drowning” probably will yield a very strong correlation and evidence that water actually is the main cause of drowning and the conclusion that public access to swimming-pools therefore should be restricted.

Second - all research that reports any positive effects from UV-light (of which there are a lot with more and more added almost every week) were omitted from the review.

Third - “Solar radiation” is since long included in Group 1 of Carcinogenics. Just like alcoholic products and many other, more ‘”common’” substances than, for example, mustard gas. Therefore, logically, since the UV-radiation from the sun (at least the part that reaches the earth) and the emissions from the lamps in a sunbed are practically the same, UV-radiation from sunbeds should belong to the same group. Towards this background, the almost fanatic attacks on sunbeds alone (in combination of a blatant promotion of sun-protection- and sunless-lotions) seem a little bit out of context, especially since there is no real evidence to support such attacks.

Prof Adèle Green

Fourth - the Chairman of the International Agency for Research on Cancer Working Group on artificial ultraviolet (UV) light and skin cancer at the time the review was made, Prof Adèle Green from Australia, is sponsored by L’Oreal, the largest supplier to consumers of sunscreen-lotions and artificial tanning lotions in the world (See ref below and here:  http://www.qimr.edu.au/research/labs/adeleg/index.html).

This also explains the intensive and expensive PR about the “news” of the upgrading of sunbeds to Group 1 and the strong advice about usage of sunscreen and artificial tan products. Not even tobacco, which obviously doesn’t have any health benefits at all, has gotten this kind of negative PR, because in that case the big commercial interests are on the side of smokers.

Fifth - WHO recommendations from 2005 have not been changed (which is natural because no new “evidence” has been brought forward in this case). *)

*) Update:  WHO recommendation on tanning beds has been changes since this post was written. In Fact sheet N°287,  Interim revision April 2010, they give recommendations built upon old and obviously fraudulent research sponsored by L’Oreal.  I will write more about this in a separate post.

Anyhow, all the above doesn’t take away the strong negative impact of the latest PR-campaign against indoor tanning. The doctors and scientists who have found solid proof of that UV-light not only is healthy but also necessary, have no rich companies that can sponsor their PR, making the debate very one-sided.

Governmental bodies in most countries have been easily and heavily affected by the recommendations from WHO and the media-reports but haven’t so far shown any tendencies to consider recent findings about the benefits of UV-light. (When will we, for example, see recommendations for regular blood-tests measuring Vitamin-D levels? To follow up the level of Vitamin-D is probably more important than following the level of cholesterol.)

The representatives for the tanning-industry and you, dear Tanners, must take every opportunity to urge representatives for mass-media to take their responsibility not to blindly report a one-sided view on this issue. There are too many reports on the necessity of UV-light for most functions of the human body for those facts to be ignored. On the latitudes of Northern Europe (north of the latitude through Paris), humans just can’t get enough of Vitamin-D from the natural sun during most part of the year.With the strong evidence that the only relevant and safe source of Vitamin-D comes from UV-light,  the continuous campaign against indoor tanning is very counterproductive to common health.

We will reach a much better result and balance if we all work together to teach and promote that moderate, responsible and controlled (by professionals, not by governmental decrees) tanning is good and not bad.

REF.: Point: Sunscreen Use Is a Safe and Effective Approach to Skin Cancer Prevention

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(10):1921 – 2; Received 5/25/07; accepted 6/28/07.

Conflict of Interest: Adele C. Green currently receives funds from L’Oreal to run a

research project and has research staff paid for by that company. She is also the

co-author of several papers referred to in this article.

Requests for reprints: Adele C. Green, Queensland Institute of Medical Research,

Royal Brisbane Hospital Post Office, Brisbane, 4029, Queensland, Australia.

Phone: 61-7-3362-0234; Fax: 011-61-7-3845-3503. E-mail: adeleG@qimr.edu.au

Copyright D 2007 American Association for Cancer Research.

doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-07-0477

Monograph Working Group

Members

B Armstrong—Co-Chair (Australia), E Cardis—Co-Chair (Spain); A Green (Australia); D Krewski, R Mitchel, N Priest (Canada); L Tomašek (Czech Republic); K Baverstock (Finland); J-F Doré, J Hall, L Sabatier (France); M Sokolnikov (Russian Federation); M Hill, M Little, M Marshall, C Muirhead, A Riddell (UK); D Brenner [unable to attend], R Guilmette, D Hoel, D Richardson, R Ullrich (USA)

Conflicts of interest

NP works for, and RM is a consultant to, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. CM receives funding from the UK Ministry of Defence. JH receives funding from Electricité de France. AG receives funding from L’Oreal Recherche.

Invited Specialists

None