If You’re Using the UV Index to Tan, You’re Using It Very Wrong

22.05.2026, 16:24 allure.com

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are apps dedicated to tanning. There truly is an app for everything—why wouldn’t there be one to tell you when to go outside, soak up the sun, turn over, and bake your skin until you achieve the crispy sheen of a Costco rotisserie chicken while accelerating every sign of aging and increasing your risk of cancer?

For many curious (and often quite young) tanners, whose entire lives already revolve around tracking everything from their periods to their reading habits with an app, it makes sense to optimize tanning this way. But there’s one part of this phenomenon that feels particularly dystopian: Many of them have taken the UV Index, a respected meteorological tool, and flipped its intent on its head. Instead of advising users to seek shade or stay inside when the index is highest, these apps reframe those peak hours as the best time to get a sweet tan.

Let’s back up and get scientific with it: “The UV Index was designed to help people understand the strength of ultraviolet radiation at a specific location and time,” explains Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist and senior vice president of weather content and forecast operations. “The impact of UV Index numbers can depend on length of exposure, the time of year, latitude, time of day, the amount and thickness of cloud cover, and various other atmospheric conditions.” The index measures UV levels on a scale of 1 to 11; the higher the number, the more damaging the rays. It was established in Canada in 1992, with the global UV Index taking effect two years later.

The App Store of it all makes this seem like a brand new phenomenon, but we were doing similar UV-maxxing during my youth in the late ‘90s and early aughts. The UV Index absolutely existed when I was a tan-loving teen and twentysomething, but I didn’t know one thing about it. (“Apps” weren’t part of my vocabulary until the mid-2010s, unless you were talking about happy hour. And I wasn’t all that interested in meteorology.) I did know, however, that “prime tanning hours” were between 10am and 2pm, and that’s when I was bound and determined to “lay out.” I could laze around on a towel for hours, sipping ice water (or, let’s be honest, a mixed drink in a thermos) and plowing through a paperback, happy as a proverbial clam. Had TikTok existed, alerting me to the existence of the UV Index and apps that promised to optimize my tanning habits, I would have been very into it. I wish I was shocked that young women today are using the UV Index to get tanner, faster, considering how much more they know about the health and aesthetic risks posed by the sun. Based on my own youthful obsessions with a tan, though, I’m really not.

The weaponization of this particular tool as a tanning aid is a very tough pill to swallow for dermatologists. This is of course the complete opposite of what the UV Index was intended for—to help people understand the intensity of UV rays in order to make safer decisions about their sun exposure—not maximize tanning potential. “The goal is to reduce cumulative UV exposure, which is directly linked to skin cancer, photoaging, pigmentary disorders, and immune suppression—think herpes outbreaks following fun in the sun,” says Adam Friedman, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and chair of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

"The higher the UV Index, the greater the potential for injury.”

Using the UV Index as a guide for tanning “reframes a public health safety tool into a roadmap for intentional skin injury,” says Dr. Friedman, who stresses that a tan is not a sign of health and vitality: “It’s a biological response to DNA damage from ultraviolet radiation. The higher the UV Index, the greater the potential for injury.”

Becky Kamowitz, executive director of the Skin Cancer Foundation, seconds this. “People in their teens and early twenties are rarely diagnosed with skin cancer—though it can and does happen—but the UV damage sustained earlier in life increases your skin cancer risk later in life.” She notes that women ages 49 and under are more likely to develop melanoma than any other cancer except breast and thyroid.

“The cumulative nature of skin cancer and the amount of time spent in the sun throughout your lifetime are two factors that contribute to your skin cancer risk," Kamowitz says. "It’s so important to start a daily sun protection strategy early.” It probably goes without saying, but that strategy should not include checking the UV Index for peak tanning times, or downloading an app that sends push notifications reminding you not to skip your daily tanning session. I know firsthand how good it feels to bask in warm sunlight and watch your skin turn golden, to show off flirty tan lines, to hang with your friends near the water and flip over in tandem. It’s fun, and sometimes being the “sun-safe friend” makes you feel like a total buzzkill. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my tanning days, but now that I’m much closer to 40 than 20, it doesn’t feel worth it anymore.

Those days are now written on my skin: in constellations of spots across my chest, little wrinkles around my eyes, scars from razored-off moles. “I want young people to understand that your skin remembers everything,” Dr. Friedman says. “The tan you see today may fade in a few weeks, but DNA damage accumulates over a lifetime.” Yet the same teens and 20somethings who are increasingly concerned about their skin aging are also chasing that very DNA damage. They’re getting Botox younger and younger—while hastening the arrival of lines with their tanning habits. “Much of what we associate with ‘skin aging,’ like wrinkles, discoloration, loss of elasticity, rough texture, is driven more by UV exposure than age itself,” says Dr. Friedman. And not everyone will have a straight shot from midwinter pale to bronzed goddess. Many people burn before they tan, if they tan at all, and this only increases your skin cancer risk. Dr. Friedman says that experiencing five or more “blistering sunburns” between ages 15 and 20 is associated with an approximately 80% increased melanoma risk, not to mention a 68% increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer.

“We've normalized the idea that measurable skin damage is somehow a wellness or beauty strategy.”

But that doesn’t seem to matter to many in generations Z and Alpha. Kamowitz tells me that “UV Index” is trending nearly 20 percent higher across social media in recent years, and seemingly not because people are looking to avoid a sunburn (or taking a sudden interest in meteorological science). Dr. Friedman says that our culture has “normalized the idea that measurable skin damage is somehow a wellness or beauty strategy.” If you search the words “UV Index” on TikTok, you’ll see the proof, like people celebrating when it hits a specific level.

The Skin Cancer Foundation is taking this misuse seriously, and they’ve teamed up with AccuWeather for a two-way partnership. The foundation showcases AccuWeather's UV Index on its homepage and in turn, AccuWeather is featuring stories about skin cancer and sun protection on their site. “With summer sunshine on the way, there's no better time to get this message in front of people who are already thinking about spending more time outdoors,” Porter says.

We now have the ability to track almost every element of our days and nights. And data can do wonderful things—when used the way it was intended, the UV Index can save lives. When leveraged to maximize sun exposure, however, it will have the opposite effect.

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