Protecting your skin can make suntanning safer, but never safe. You should always be mindful of the number of hours you expose your skin to the sun after applying sunscreen protection. You should apply sunscreen to your skin of at least SPF 30, and it should be applied a minimum of 30 minutes before you begin sun tanning. SPF implies Sun Protection Factor and every sunscreen should have it clearly stated on the bottle. To learn more about the numbers associated with different sunscreens, you can visit http://snipurl.com/3d38v. 

To better answer your question "Is sun tanning safe?", it is advised that you avoid tanning during the hottest hours of the day. The exact hours are hard to say, but a good rule is to tan before 10AM and after 4PM, which are considered to be comparatively cooler hours of the day. Tanning during these hours is comparatively safer than getting tanned during peak hours, between 10AM and 4PM.

If sun safety is your primary concern, then you should consider using sun block as opposed to sun screen. Sun block does just that, it blocks all of the UV rays of the sun from our skin. As opposed to a sunscreen which attempts to block out the harmful rays and let in enough rays to cause a suntan.  Sunscreens lower your risk of getting burnt, but sun blocks almost completely remove that risk. It is recommended that you limit your time in the sun to avoid overexposure and reapply your sunscreen after every two hours or after coming out of the water.

These are just a few tips that will help you get a healthy sun tan and will also address the question you have had on your mind, “Is suntanning safe?”.