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If you're looking for ways to avoid sunburns on this very hot not-quite holiday weekend, Reuters photographer Aly Song snapped some shots of a fairly radical method employed by some beach-goers in Qingdao, China Friday: Nylon face masks. The masked bathing beauties are getting some notice here in the overheated (and somewhat news deprived) United States with Yahoo News and The Wall Street Journal among others already pointing their readers to the photos.

Reuters notes that a woman invented the masks about seven years ago and they are sold widely in swimwear stores in China. The invention isn't that surprising when you consider that (to the delight of their dermatologists) Chinese women often favor pale skin over tans. It's a country that's captured the great majority of the market for skin whitening products, China Daily notes. Still, these women all look pretty striking, and the Internet has noticed.

The masks are pretty infamous in China too. "Swimsuit Auntie" a woman depicted emerging from the ocean in a full body nylon black suit, went viral on microblogs in China in summer 2011. We might think the beach goers look funny now, but they'll be laughing at us with their curiously young looking skin in 30 years.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.