Mom who battled skin cancer 3 times blasts viral ‘tanmaxxing’ TikTok trend

By Lauren Wilkin

A woman who has fought skin cancer three times has slammed the "tanmaxxing" TikTok trend and begged young people to "learn from my dumb mistakes."

Liz Benditt, 54, has survived six different types of cancer admits she got "roasted" in long sunbathing sessions as a youngster in the 1980s when less was known about the dangers of UV.

She's since had skin cancer removed from her leg twice and her nose.

Tanmaxxing refers to accelerating the tanning process by planning your day around UV levels, using tanning oils and butters, and avoiding high SPF suncreams, before showing off 'crisp' tan lines on TikTok and Instagram.

While a fixation with bronzed skin has long existed, the term 'tanmaxxing' was coined just this spring. Since, it has grown rapidly in popularity, with thousands of videos using the hashtag on TikTok.

"I tanmaxxed in the 80s, and I want people to learn from my dumb mistakes," said businesswoman from Kansas City, Missouri.

"I can't believe this tanmaxxing trend. It's shocking.

"If my story doesn't scare them, they deserve what they get.

"Don't tan max. It's not worth it."

Liz said she was taking part in the trend before social media existed.

"I grew up in the 80s when the idea of sunscreen was white crap that looked stupid on your nose," she said.

"And I'm very fair skinned. I’ve got red hair and freckles and I will never get a tan. But as a teenager I tried.

"I used Hawaiian Tropic 5. It smelled delicious – just like summer – and me and my girlfriends would roll out our towels and just lie in the sun."

"I would just get roasted," she said.

"I can't tell you how many sunburns I had. I was destroying my skin."

Liz saw a doctor aged 16 to seek advice about how to stop burning, and to her surprise, a paediatrician told her to use sunbeds.

At that time, little was known about the dangers of UV.

"He said it would give me a base layer of tan that would stop the skin from burning so easily," she added.

So, along with wearing more suncream, Liz started to regularly use sunbeds, too.

"All of that came and hit me in the butt 20 years later," Liz said.

While Liz, 37 at the time, was lying by a pool with her two small children in 2009, her mum noticed a mole on her leg.

"She didn't like the look of it, and she wouldn't give up," she said.

"Calling, texting, emailing me, telling me to see a dermatologist."

Eventually, Liz went to a professional. Immediately, they removed the mole and sent it off for a biopsy.

It came back the next day as melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer.

"It was a complete blur," she said.

"I was devastated. The doctor said this was not something to mess with and I had to get straight into surgery.

"I also had to have a lymph node biopsy in my groin to see if the cancer had spread. I was awake and it was this huge needle at the top of my thigh.

"I remember screaming. It was excruciating."

And the nightmare didn't end there. The biopsy caused a hematoma – a collection of blood outside of the body.

"This great ball of blood on my inner thigh had to be lanced off," Liz said.

"It was miserable. To this day, I have significant scarring and trauma."

Liz was lucky she had caught the cancer early enough to stop it from spreading to the lymph nodes, she said.

"If it had spread, I would have had less than a year to live," she added.

From that moment, Liz saw a dermatologist four times a year and ensured she covered her skin whenever she was in the sun.

But little did she know, there were two more skin cancers to come.

In 2015, Liz found something unusual on her nose.

"It was like a freckle but it was a completely different texture to skin," she said. "It almost felt wet."

After testing, doctors confirmed it was basal cell skin cancer – a less aggressive, but still dangerous, form of cancer.

It would need to be removed, and the surgery was even more traumatic than the last.

"They needed to cut the skin away from my nose and then stretch the rest of my face skin over it to cover the area," Liz added.

"I was awake the whole time.

"They cut the skin away and then they put their fingers into my face, beneath the skin, all the way to the cheekbones."

"It was like they were stuffing a chicken.

"I went into shock - I couldn't believe I was awake witnessing this."

After the surgery, a recovery patch was sewn onto her face as it healed.

Liz went on to get skin cancer on her leg a third time, as well as breast cancer twice and thyroid cancer.

While studies suggest getting skin cancer can increase your risk of getting other unrelated cancers, doctors were unable to confirm whether Liz's breast and thyroid cancer were linked to her first skin cancer.

Luckily, through extensive treatment, Liz is now happy and healthy, having survived all six cancers.

"I got so lucky, but I could have been dead by now," she said. "My kids could have been without a mother age one and three."

Now, Liz has started her own business to help other cancer patients.

"After 35 rounds of radiation, friends didn’t know what to gift me," she said.

"I’m an adult don’t give me a teddy bear!

"So many people kept giving me useless pink stuff – it was well meaning – but I don’t need pink socks that say cancer survivor.

"I needed lotion that would help and burn balms and ice packs, and I started wondering why functional gifting wasn't a thing – so I started it myself."

Liz's business, Balm Box, sells gifts that will help keep cancer patients comfortable, based on her own experience.

"I set it up in 2020 and it's been growing like crazy ever since," she said. "We deliver all over now, US, Europe, Mexico, Canada."