Tanning mom's new career

Patricia Krentcil became infamously known as “the tanning mom” after being accused of putting her 6-year-old daughter into a tanning bed. Patricia has denied the accusations, but her case has created a storm of criticism. Now, nearly five months later, the next chapter in this bizarre case may shock you even further…Patricia has become the face of a skin care regime. In her efforts to heal her damaged skin, Patricia is following “The Skin Regime”, a skincare routine developed by Westchester-based skincare enthusiast Dana Ramos.Patricia stopped by “The Shine” to talk about her rollercoaster of a life these past couple of months, how she’s doing now, and why she decided to change her ways.

In this episode, The Shine's Host Allison Fishman is wearing:
Dress, Express
Necklace, By Boe (www.byboe.com)
Bracelet, Jessie Lane Jewels
Shoes,BCBG

The biggest question on our minds: has the “tanning mom” completely stopped tanning? According to Patricia, yes – she has quit tanning beds cold turkey. If anything, she says, she’s now using skin protection. But how did she so abruptly go from being tanning-obsessed to the spokesperson for a skin care regime? Patricia says that Dana made her feel “different”. In hearing about the partnership between Patricia and Dana, some might wonder if Dana is exploiting Patricia only to help promote and sell her new book. Dana adamantly denies this point of view, and says: “Me exploiting her? Why don’t you talk to the tabloids? I selected Patricia because I wanted to promote the book and at the same time I want to find someone who has bad skin or damaged skin and to prove that this could be done simply and at home. But by hiring a model, and people say yea, that’s what they all do…I’m going to take somebody that everyone saw their face and very quickly turn it around.” Patricia, too, claims to be doing the skincare regime for all the right seasons. She says this isn’t about impressing the courts – she is truly committed to repairing her skin. She admitted she was tanning too much and now she hopes to replenish her skin.















Tanning too much for Patricia Krentcil is probably an understatement. Some doctors even called her “tanorexic”. So how did she overcome this obsession and need to always tan? Patricia is open about the “buzz” that tanning can bring and she admits that she didn’t understand how addictive tanning could be, even at her age (Patricia is forty-four years old). And she says that her desire to overcome the obsession came with her realizing she’s getting older and wants to maintain a fresh look as long as she can.

There’s no surprise that our Shine viewers have been very hard on Patricia and her decisions over the past couple of months. One viewer said: “ People with mental health problems do not see what others do. Like the anorexic teen, we see skin and bones, they see fat.” And another wrote, “It’s sad how so many people are lured into a false sense of beauty when they tan.” We asked Patricia to respond to these harsh comments and she found it simply ludicrous that anyone could possibly think she has mental health issues. She calls anyone with these types of opinions “ignorant”.

After hashing out the above, we pinpointed one last viewer question for Patricia that we felt many people would want to know at this point in time. The question came from our Shine Facebook fan Melissa who wrote in: “Was getting in trouble a wake-up call and was that the reason you decided to get help and look healthy?” Patricia says getting in trouble definitely woke her up -- seeing her face plastered on the front page of newspapers was eye opening. She didn’t realize she was that tan. Was it a wake-up call to make a change? She thinks everything in life happens for a reason and though she really does enjoy being tan, she now understands the harm it can do. She admits that she misses tanning from time to time, but in her words: “I don’t care about it anymore, honestly.”

Do you believe Patricia’s intentions as a spokesperson for “The Skin Regime” are genuine? Let us know where you stand in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.