About Baggin' Rays

Baggin' Rays' story begins at UC Santa Barbara in 1982 when our founders first put a name on bronzing in Isla Vista, California. The term was commonly used within select groups, but never caught on mainstream, thankfully. The founders of our movement preferred our slogan to "catching rays".  They felt so passionately about sunbathing that they wrote a small draft called "Baggin' Rays, the Book." This included first hand accounts of the best ways to bag rays, but many of their secrets are for our eyes only... 

The summary of their unpublished draft is that being outside tanning made them look better, feel better, and play better. 

Our Founders loved using oil and other methods to amplify UV absorption. Truly, they were ahead of their time with realizing how serious vitamin D deficiency can be. At no point during college were any of our members suffering from inadequate vitamin D levels. However, many of our ancestors overdid it in the 80's and 90's with red sunburns, leading to widespread skin cancer and carcinoma amongst Boomers later in life. 

Contrasting the undeniable benefits of vitamin D with the daunting risks of skin cancer can be very confusing. We will admit, we were confused as well. Thankfully, using the foundation of our elders, we learned from their mistakes and took a common sense approach involving moderate sun-skin contact combined with outdoor activity. Veteran members can identify their limits and stay out all day by utilizing strategies such as long sleeves, big hats, and sunscreen to counter overexposure that may occur. Someone with darker skin has more natural protection in the form of melanin, but the main focus here is that sunbathing, tanning, bronzing, bagging, will help all people of the world including all skin types and colors. Paler people just have to exercise more caution when outside (refer to Sun Protection). 

Fast forward to 2018 where the next generation of baggers began uncovering these old, buried secrets. Upon learning of the rich UCSB tradition, members thought it was the perfect time to rejuvenate the tanning club in Isla Vista. Especially with the return of the original heiress of baggin' rays, Moroccan Mami. Her, and others' message was simple: Catch rays and spend time sunbathing, but always protect your skin from burn. Over the next two years this group of young men inspired by their female inspiration began sunbathing all over campus, hosting beach sports, band concerts, and tanning meetups on the regular.  

We are hoping to spread our message beyond the young, college community, and we want to prove that everyone can benefit from learning to bag rays responsibly.