Does a tan make you more attractive?

A light, "golden" tan modestly raises perceived male health and attractiveness, but the effect is driven mainly by skin yellowness/redness (carotenoid and blood-perfusion cues) rather than melanin darkening per se. Experimental work shows raters optimizing face health by adding yellowness (large effect, Δb*≈5.25) and redness, with lightness/darkening a minor contributor; carotenoid-rich coloration is preferred for faces and bodies across Caucasian and Chinese raters. Real artificial-tan effects on attractiveness are small and statistically significant: untanned 6.3 vs tanned 6.5 on a 10-point scale (p<.001), about 0.2 points. NOTE: the cited evidence covers carotenoid vs melanin coloration and a small positive tan effect; it does NOT itself test over-tanning, UV photoaging, or a reversal of the benefit, so any claim that the cue saturates or reverses with deep/heavy tanning is an extrapolation not backed by these four sources.

Evidence & sources

• Stephen, Law Smith, Stirrat & Perrett (2009), Facial Skin Coloration Affects Perceived Health of Human Faces (PMC2780675 / Int J Primatol)

  Raters maximized perceived health by adding yellowness (Δb*=5.25, t=29.64, p<.001) and redness (Δa*=1.62, p<.001) more than lightness (ΔL*=1.21); authors conclude any health benefit of tanning comes from increased yellowness (carotenoids), not melanin. VERIFIED.

• Ip, Lewis & Lefevre (2019), Carotenoid skin colouration enhances face and body attractiveness: A cross-cultural study (PubMed 31035862) — NOT 'Tan, Stephen et a

  High-carotenoid coloration was preferred for faces and body parts among both Caucasian and Hong Kong Chinese raters; preference for faces over body was stronger in Studies 1-2 but not Study 3. VERIFIED (author label in original result was wrong).

• Chung, Gordon, Veledar & Chen (2010), Hot or not--evaluating the effect of artificial tanning on the public's perception of attractiveness (PubMed 20961347) — N

  Tanned images rated 6.5±2.3 vs untanned 6.3±2.3 on a 10-point scale (p<.001): statistically significant but small effect. VERIFIED (author label in original result was wrong).

• Stephen, Coetzee & Perrett (2011), Carotenoid and melanin pigment coloration affect perceived human health (Evolution and Human Behavior 32(3):216-227, DOI 10.1

  Both carotenoid (yellow) and melanin coloration raise perceived health, with carotenoid coloration the stronger valid cue. URL returned HTTP 403 to the fetcher (bot block, not dead); existence and correct PII-to-article mapping confirmed via Crossref DOI lookup.