Summer has arrived in Rio de Janeiro and, away from the city’s beaches, business is booming in the rooftop tanning salons that dot the city’s low-income neighbourhoods. On these sun-soaked terraces, overlooking the urban sprawl and packed with women of all ages and sizes, the accessory of choice is electrical tape.
This unorthodox adornment is the secret to what has become a Rio fashion trademark: crisp bikini tan lines so perfect they are almost fluorescent. But not everyone is a fan. The practice horrifies dermatologists, and some Brazilians consider tape tan lines to be tacky and even vulgar.
“The dream is to have a mark like a neon light. When it looks like someone painted [the tan lines] on to you,” says Larissa Cardoso, 29, who runs a rooftop tanning salon above her home in a favela in western Rio.
As well as an electrical tape bikini applied directly on to the body, a careful sunbathing procedure must be followed to obtain the coveted marquinha de fita (“little tape mark”), as the clean-cut tan lines are called in Portuguese.
“I don’t get tan lines easily. With the tape, it works,” says Paola Santos, 25, who was finally getting her little mark back in December after a 10-month tanning hiatus while she had a baby. “I couldn’t wait to come back,” she adds.
The favela fashion of tanning in electrical tape was first popularised across Brazil in 2017 by a music video in which the Rio-born superstar Anitta shimmied sensually in a tiny bikini made from black tape.
Six years later, the growing number of salons use supposedly skin-friendly material. The brand favoured by Cardoso is marketed as tanning tape – but sold by an electrical supplies company. She buys it in different widths and colours to meet her clients’ preferences.
For a new customer on a recent Wednesday, she picks out red, with classic black for the contours. “Just grab here, to open up a little,” Cardoso tells Danielle Regina as she expertly passes a piece of tape between the woman’s buttocks. “Are you happy with the size of the bikini bottom?”
“I love it,” says Regina, 43, before being ushered upstairs to a baking roof terrace where two assistants armed with paintbrushes and a hosepipe are responsible for plastering sunbathers with a paraffin-based tanning lotion and keeping them cool and hydrated.
“We keep an eye on them the whole time, topping up the lotion … I don’t let anyone stay longer than they should,” says Cardoso, who advises her customers to spend between one and two hours in the sun depending on their skin tone and gets them to sign a disclaimer beforehand.
A rooftop session at Cardoso’s salon costs 50 reais (£8), including the tape bikini (and on some days, a breakfast buffet). For another 20, women can receive a “moon bath” treatment to bleach their body hair. UV sessions are also available but are more expensive and, in Cardoso’s opinion, less effective for getting “a nice little mark”.
The savvy entrepreneur opened her salon a year ago and has already received up to 25 clients in one day. She says she is developing expertise with experience, but has also done eight different courses to learn the trade of a personal bronze, as tanning specialists are known.
Erika Martins, a pioneer in the tape-tanning business who shot to fame after appearing in Anitta’s music video, estimates that there are now more than 2,000 personal bronzes in Rio.
“Anitta basically helped Brazil invent a new profession,” says the 41-year-old, who counts celebrities among her clients and runs training courses attended by women from all over the country.
Proponents of tape-tanning admit they like it because it accentuates their curves and makes them more attractive to male partners. “My crush is asking if I’ve done [my marquinha],” giggles Ana Caroline Custódio, 27, a customer turned assistant to Cardoso during the pre-Christmas rush.
But above all, they say it does wonders for their self-esteem.
“It’s not just for the guy, it’s for you,” argues Cardoso. The marquinha makes women feel good about themselves and tanning sessions give them an opportunity to relax, get things off their chest and make new friendships, she says.
“It’s so much more than a little mark. It’s about psychological and emotional wellbeing.”
