S A Y GOODBY TO THE BRONZE A G E

George Hamilton is hawking sun block cream.

That’s right. The man with a more intimate relationship with the sun than the planet Mercury is promoting tubes of goop designed, in part, to keep the rays out.

And the Bain de Soleil suntan lotion model? The one with the skin that used to shine like oiled mahogany? Today she looks almost beige.

Surfers are putting on hats, lifeguards are wearing long sleeves and Delta Airlines is running ads showing a bathing-suit-clad woman sitting on a beach shading herself with a big umbrella.

Amazing what a little whiff of mortality can do.

All those uncomfortable things the dermatologists have been predicting all these years, all that depressing stuff about carcinomas and melanomas and long-term skin damage and faces that will end up looking like the underside of Kid Sheleen’s saddle--they’re all coming true. And with them, Southern California’s sizzling love affair with the sun is quickly evolving into we’re-just-good-friends.

“People, as they get older, are becoming more sun-conscious,” said Dr. Gerald Weinstein, professor of dermatology at UC Irvine’s College of Medicine. “They’re afraid to have the same degree of sun damage that they were getting in the past, and they’re more aware of it than they were five years ago.

“I think (the realization) is hitting people in their 20s, but I don’t think the teen-agers have gotten the message yet. To hide under a hat or sunscreen isn’t their way of doing things yet. They think they’re going to live forever. They don’t realize sun exposure can be dangerous.”

Today, skin cancers are by far the most common cancers in the United States, numbering more than 500,000 new cases each year and accounting for one of every five reported cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. It is estimated that one in every 10 Americans will develop some form of skin cancer. And most of these cancers--as many as 90% of the carcinomas--can be traced to overexposure to the sun.

And malignant melanoma, the most serious and deadly form of skin cancer, is increasing faster among women than any other type of cancer except lung cancer. There are more than 27,000 new cases in the United States each year, and in the southern and southwestern states where the sun is stronger, about 26 people out of every 100,000 can expect to develop malignant melanoma.

An estimated 7,800 Americans will die this year as a result of some form of skin cancer, according to the cancer society.

Also worrisome to many formerly devoted sun worshipers is the prospect of premature aging of the skin, another byproduct of overexposure to ultraviolet radiation.

This combination of threats has caused the consciousness level about the dangers of sun exposure to rise, and it has led more than a few adults to reconsider the benefits of sunbathing and the fashionableness of a deep tan.

Take the Bain de Soleil model, for instance. Her current lighter shade is a response to a survey in which the company asked respondents to choose which shades they preferred. Only about 10% said they preferred a dark tan, and more than half said they liked what the company calls “the medium golden-honey color.”

Bain de Soleil literature goes on to quote Janet Carlson Freed, editor of European Travel & Life magazine, as having asserted that in the United States and Europe, “Color is definitely still in, but the deep, dark tan is not.”

“I’m seeing people who wish they could tan because they’re still programmed to want it, but today their No. 1 concern is skin aging and the No. 2 is skin cancer,” said Mina Law, owner of the Institute for Skin Therapy studio in Costa Mesa. “People are really trying to not spend so much time in the sun.”

The Coppertone Corp., too, has done consumer studies that show lighter skin is in.

“I don’t think the look of the tan has gone away,” said JoAnne Brown, a spokeswoman for the corporation. “People still want that look. But they’re getting a lot smarter about exposure to the sun. They’re still going out there, but they’re using (stronger) sunscreen products and getting more educated. They know that the sun doesn’t forget.”

And the memory can be relentless. The body can heal injuries to other parts, but the skin retains the effects of sun damage throughout a person’s life. The effects of a couple of long teen-age summers spent at the beach may not show up for 20 years or more. But, in one form or another, they will show up.

“There’s a certain amount of damage that will have its effect 10 or 20 years down the pike,” Weinstein says. “A certain amount of (recent) damage appears to be reversible, but you’re not going to remove the old damage. Some of that is going to creep up from the early years.”

Particularly disturbing, he said, is the fact that malignant melanoma “seems to have a history in some of these individuals who had a severe sunburn when they were younger.” The majority of melanoma patients suffered, at one time or another in their youths, at least one badly blistering sunburn.

Such a sunburn need never occur. To protect oneself, however, one must adopt certain behaviors and be conversant with several anatomical and scientific terms. It is important, skin specialists say, to remember that the human skin is an organ, the largest in the body, and that it acts as a shield for internal organs.

It protects itself from the sun’s rays by producing, in one of its upper layers, a substance called melanin, the brown pigment that will turn skin tan. This natural protective agent is produced in greater quantities in darker-skinned people such as blacks and those with olive Mediterranean-type coloring. (Skin cancers are rarer among those with darker skins.)

Although a tan offers some protection, any prolonged exposure to the sun produces cumulative damage to the basal, or lower layer of skin, causing a loss of elasticity. Because the skin thins with age, its natural defenses against the sun erode as we grow older.

There are two villains in the story: the ultraviolet rays classified as A and B. UVA rays are present throughout the daylight hours, but are particularly strong in the early morning and late afternoon, when the sun is at an angle overhead. The longer wavelengths of UVA penetrate more deeply into the skin. They were once thought to be safe, but scientists discovered in recent years that they can cause aging, wrinkling and can contribute to skin cancer.

UVB rays are the most common cause of sunburns. They have shorter wavelengths and are more intense during the summer months, particularly between about 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., at higher altitudes and near the Equator. UVB rays reflected off sand, water or snow are even more intense; at midday, these can penetrate three feet of water.

Until about 15 years ago, the only way for the fair-skinned to win the battle against sun damage was to stay out of the sun. Today, however, the first line of defense is represented by three letters: SPF.

It stands for sun protection factor, and it has become the summertime argot of the pale. Today, sun-care-product tubes and bottles bear SPF numbers of anywhere from 2 to 45--the higher the number, the greater the protection. If one is using a lotion with an SPF of 15, for instance, one can stay in the sun 15 times longer than usual before burning.

The rule of thumb: the fairer your skin, the higher the SPF you need.

That the public has become conversant with this sunscreen language is a small revolution, says Dr. Matthew Goodman, co-director of the UCI Melanoma and Skin Cancer Center.

“Without question,” Goodman said, “the biggest change has been the use by the public of sunscreen products. I think that’s wonderful, and I think it’ll make an impact on reducing skin cancers in the future. We’ll have to wait a few decades before we see that effect, though.”

The wider use of sun-care products has, naturally, been a bonanza for the companies that make them. One market estimate says that sun-care product sales currently amount to $350 million to $400 million annually and are growing at a rate of more than 10% each year.

Still, dermatologists and others say, the best sun-protection factor is no sun at all.

“Most people think that sun block is complete protection,” Law said, “but it really isn’t. There’s still damage potential.”

The second line of defense? Clothes. And not wispy translucent coverings that admit light, but tightly woven garments and hats that block the sun entirely.

But doesn’t that look a little wimpy? Ask a lifeguard.

“We’re very leery of the sun,” says Eric Bauer, a marine safety officer with the Newport Beach lifeguards. “We have tops on all our Jeeps, and all of us guys basically try to wear long-sleeve shirts and use sunscreen and wear hats and stay out of the sun as much as possible. You get enough sun even taking those precautions. That’s common knowledge among the lifeguards.”

Today’s lifeguards, Bauer says, have seen what the sun has done to a number of their older counterparts who may not have taken proper precautions.

“Some of the older lifeguards have had bouts with early cancer symptoms,” he says, “and we’re very conscious of it. These are our careers, and we figure we’re going to be here for 20 years. We don’t want problems down the line. The city actually provides us with a $50-a-year allowance to buy protection like shirts and hats and sunscreen.”

And if Bauer and his co-workers need any extra incentive, they only need look around them.

“It’s real obvious that some of the people who come to the beach have spent a lot of time in the sun,” Bauer says. “They still fry themselves out there. But we did the same thing when we were younger. When you’re young, you feel like you’re bulletproof.”

However, youth is the time of life when protecting yourself from the sun is most critical, sun-care specialists say. Children, they say, spend three times as many hours in the sun as adults. They estimate, then, that 80% of a person’s lifetime sun damage is done before the age of 20.

Many product lines now include high-SPF products specifically for children.

Still, many young people learn the hard way.

Leslie Cyril, community relations manager at the UCI Clinical Cancer Center, remembers trying to tan as a teen-ager.

Cyril, a fair-skinned redhead in her 30s, said: “I was your typical teen-ager. Because when you’re that age, you want to get tan or they’ll make fun of you and you look like you don’t belong. But I found when I was out in the sun more than an hour sunbathing, I’d get sick--very bad headaches and hot flashes. When I was young, about 12, I got a really bad sunburn and had to be on medication and stay in bed for two weeks.

“You get to the point, though, when you reach a certain age, where you’re too smart to buy into the peer pressure. Now I don’t sunbathe at all, and I avoid sitting in the sun. If I have to be outside, say for an outdoor wedding, I wear sunscreen and a big hat. I don’t even let people open their sunroofs when I’m in the car.

“In Southern California,” she said, “pale may still not be in, but the smart people know to stay out of the sun.”

The Signs of Skin Cancer

If there is an all-purpose maxim in the battle against skin cancer, it is this: Know thyself. Know all of thyself.

That means every inch of your skin because skin cancers can appear anywhere.

The American Cancer Society recommends a monthly self-examination of your skin, from head to toe, using a full-length mirror and a hand mirror. The idea is to note all the pigmented areas of your skin--freckles, moles, birthmarks and other noticeable spots and see whether they change.

Here’s what you’re looking for:

Basal cell carcinoma. The most common form of skin cancer (it accounts for 75% of all skin cancers), it often appears first as a small round or oval patch, usually white or gray, shiny and hard, but sometimes pink or red and scaly. They are slow-growing and don’t spread to other parts of the body.

However, they have a high rate of recurrence. A person who develops one has a 40% chance of developing another.

It is treated by excision under local anesthesia.

Squamous cell carcinoma. Like the basal cell variety, squamous cell carcinomas usually appear on areas of the skin exposed to the sun. They are similar in appearance to basal cell carcinomas, but they tend to be redder and more swollen. They also grow faster. They eventually form a central crust and ulcerate. They are also more likely to spread to other parts of the body. About 20% of skin cancers are of this type, and they are treated in much the same way as basal cell carcinomas.

Malignant melanoma. This is the least common, but most dangerous, type of skin cancer (5% of skin cancers but 75% of skin-cancer deaths), and it can occur on any part of the body, whether or not exposed to sun. It can spread to other parts of the body and, if left untreated, can cause death. However, if the cancer is detected early, the recovery rate is high.

The American Cancer Society has developed a memory key, an aid to spotting melanomas, that might be called the “ABCDE characteristics”:

A for asymmetry : Half of the mole doesn’t match the other.

B for border irregularity : The edges are ragged, notched or blurred.

C for color : The color is not uniform, but may be shades of tan, brown or black, sometimes with patches of red, white or blue.

D for diameter : A diameter greater than a quarter-inch and any that is increasing in size may indicate a melanoma.

E for elevation : A mole raised above the skin surface.

Common treatment is excision.