Earlier this week all over the news were concerns of Health Specialists over Ubertan - the nasal tanning spray which was reported to promote levels of melanin and give a "perfect, safe and natural looking tan".
Experts seemed horrified that people (I suspect when they say people, in the main they mean women) would go to such lengths to acquire a suntan. Why I can't understand. Women have always gone to huge lengths to be brown. There is no doubt that a suntan makes you feel better, thinner. Clothes that you would ordinarily not dare to wear suddenly look gorgeous again.
I can still remember the first time I had a proper suntan. I had never been abroad on a family holiday and so until I was 18 I had never had the wonderful feeling of being brown - just the odd slightly discoloured arm and round bit around the neck where my T shirt finished! However, when I was 16 I got a Saturday job in Woolies - I was a quiet sort -didnt spend a lot of money on going out and had no idea about fashion (my Mum told me what to wear anyway) so I managed to save up enough money to go on holiday to the South of France with a friend and her family. We went on the coach - it was an horrendous journey - but when we got there we were in a lovely campsite in a huge tent and close to an absolutely beautiful beach.
That holiday , I experienced something that I never had before - I got a beautiful suntan. I also had a little holiday romance with a boy from Winchester - something else I had never experienced before - which, of course, I put all down to the suntan! When I returned from the holiday I had many admiring glances, and for the ten days or so that the tan lasted I felt like a different person!
It is that feeling that led me to sunbeds. When I was 18 - 25, I must have used sunbeds 3 or 4 times a week constantly - and if I had a special occasion to attend even more. I could not get enough of feeling brown. I went on many holidays abroad and I found that a suntan was linked to my success with the opposite sex! When I was white I wasn't looked at or chatted up by a soul - with a suntan that all changed.
Yes - a suntan changed my life!
I never had much luck with men and I had a few casual relationships in my early twenties - which always hotted up after I came back of a foreign holiday. And always when I was abroad, I had a holiday romance without doubt - always in the second week when my tan had started to develop. I began to link romance with suntan - that's how important it was.
The path to the tan was always the same - take high factor for the first couple of days - and in those days high factor was a Factor 8! Six for the next couple days then I would get fed up with waiting for the tan to develop so we would buy some Carrot Oil from the shop at the beach and move onto baby oil for the last few days - always the same.
The main aim of the holiday was to be brown - and we would start planning our first Friday night out and what we were going to wear, while we lay on the beach - before the holiday had even finished. Flights were booked that were timed with our social life - Maximise every opportunity!
I was addicted - and because in those days, there was no warning of skin cancer - I just carried on. I understand perfectly the desperation of people to try things which will make being brown easy.
I no longer use sunbeds - but I do use fake tan. And when I can afford it I have a spray tan and even after all these years I still feel great - that has never gone away - but it is tinged with the worry that my actions may have ruined my skin and have undoubtedly increased my chances of skin cancer - I check my moles very carefully.
I have too looked at other ways of being (and staying) brown - in my heyday, I saw some pill advertised that promised to do a similar thing to the Ubertan product - I am far too old and sensible to try anything like that now, but I did consider it then - but I loved the whole thing about the sunbed parlour and lying down for half an hour at lunchtime in the warm, so I just stuck with what I knew!
So , experts - dont underestimate the value of suntan and what some people place on it. There is no surprise that if a product is advertised that will make you be brown, stay brown and you wont get streaks, people will go for it.
And however much fashion and beauty experts tell you that "white is right" - and "pale is the new suntan", nothing but nothing will make that short skirt or dress look better than a shapely pair of brown pins coming from under it!