Shropshire Magazine

The real thing, or a bit of bottle? . . .

Vanessa Lloyd-Thomas finds that while the future may be bright, it will definitely be orange

Don’t you just love the first whiff of summer? Digging out the sunglasses, casting aside boots and opaque tights and . . . aaaggghhh . . . realising that your legs are going to need some serious attention, if not actual surgery, before being unveiled in public. 

This year the problem is compounded by fashionistas declaring the dress code to be hem lines that are more like panty lines. It’s all such a far cry from past summers when Sienna Miller and her bo-ho look meant we could all swan around with white calves and hairy fetlocks safely concealed beneath a floaty maxi-dress. 

Nope, this year it’s pins out and proud – fine if you’ve slim, bronzed legs like Kate Moss but a tad more challenging for your average middle-aged, size 14–16 Shropshire lass. 

Twenty years ago life was much easier, and not just because we were all 20 years younger! All we needed to do was hop on a sunbed daily from March to May . . . et voila! – tantastic legs ready for a summer outing.

Toast

You could even hire your own sun ‘canopy’ for a week at a time, delivered and assembled by a man with a van who would set it to hover above your spare bed. Turn the timer and you could happily toast yourself, one side at a time, as often as you liked. Sometimes they even had handbooks and goggles too! 

How naive we were, and how very lucky not to all look like squinting raisins now. In fact, maybe that’s part of the reason why so many women are booking in for Botox. 

No, these days our tanner of choice is a fake one, much safer on the skin but still an assault on the nostrils with its background scent of biscuits and sugar beet pulp. 

Making your mark: I know what you did last summer – and so does everybody else.

And it comes with its own particular etiquette dilemma too – when, if at all, is it acceptable to leave an ‘afterglow’ of orangey brown in your wake? 

Anyone who has ever had a fake tan, either DIY or salon, will know that, however expensive or convincing the product, at some stage it will need to come off. 

The cheaper ones will start to streak onto underwear, clothes, sheets and pale furniture from the minute the top is back on the bottle, but even the exclusive salon favourites leave a trail it wouldn’t take CSI to follow in the shower and on white bathroom towels. 

I’m told by my single chums that it is now a major consideration in the early stages of dating, too. Chances of romance with a dream guy are greatly enhanced by a confidence-building tan, but will you ever see him again when he discovers the mess you’ve left on his sheets? 

Like sunbed use, good fake tans can also become addictive. Last autumn I discovered a new range of spray tan at a local salon that looked fabulous and, with an in-built perfume, also smelled OK too. 

I topped up weekly and glowed through a series of dances and balls, where in the past the black evening dress had made me look like a Gothic tribute act. It stayed on through saunas and swimming sessions, and only caused a slight embarrassment when I went for an aromatherapy massage which left my back white and the therapist’s hands nut brown. 

I recommended it to everyone, including a friend’s sister who was due to be a bridesmaid. She gamely went along, slipped on the paper knickers and struck a pose for the spray gun. Her back completed, the therapist moved to her front and, clunk, the spray machine broke . . . leaving her two-tone for her best friend’s big day. Perhaps there is no such thing as a safe tan after all!