To tan or not to tan that is the question

For a country that gets ridiculously little sun we seem to be a nation obsessed with tanning. Unless you really have been away on a sun holiday everyone thinks its fake. They just might not be willing to tell you to your face. 

 Now I used to be all about the tan. anyway of getting my skin to look more bronzed, well I've done it. Sitting outside the minute the sun makes an appearance with as much skin as possible bared or flaunting a body that really shouldn't have been in a bikini all in attempts to  get that golden glow but usually ending up all red and peely. I once gave sun beds a brief go but had to stop because I actually got sun-burnt on the sun bed, I didn't even know that was possible. It is because I once had an artificially sun burnt bum to show for it. true story. I also got spray tanned twice and if you don't mind too much having a woman spray you with a hose while you make stupid poses in paper knickers then you might just like a spray tan but I can't say it worked for me.

 For most of my twenties I went through so much sally hansen spray on tan I probably could have bought shares in the company and made a pretty neat profit for myself. I'm pretty sure there's still traces of it in my college apartment, that stuff gets everywhere. I know most people have heard that tan makes you look a bit slimmer which is probably why so many women are unable to manage without it. I know that I would probably never had the courage  to wear revealing outfits with out it as a back drop. It did make me look slimmer so I will give it credit for that and that was all well and good until I realized that I'd rather be slimmer and stay pale than keep on being fat with a bit of tan splashed on.

 So I've retired my sally hansen. I haven't bought a smidgen of fake tan in at least a year and I've invested in some high spf sun cream. I will be sitting in the shade if this summer weather continues ( realistically it probably wont) because as nice as a bit of tan looks (a lot nice than my pale drab skin) I don't want to face starting to look older. I hope to continually surprise people when I tell them my age. The more I read about how the sun damages our skin, the more freaked out I get about the possibility. I don't want to wake someday and find that the summer glow I was aiming for actually turned me into someone resembling an old leather handbag. So this is why I am choosing to not tan, for better or for worse but I might resort to a teeny tiny bit of Garnier tinted body moisturizer, just to take the glare off a little bit 

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