What The Butler Saw

I'm not going to start this first ever blog post in the most intellectual way. Right now, what I want to express is simply how utterly dreadful Boots' Soltan fake tan is - in my opinion of course - this is fair comment and not libel, right?

Not that I really shelled out on the 'shimmering' brown gunge. If I had, I would probably have chosen something a little more midmarket - Johnsons or Nivea both get good reviews, for example. No, the Soltan cost me £1 at a women's magazine's beauty sale many months ago, along with £10 worth of other random beauty products I bought for the bargain.

Anyway, my only previous experiences with fake tan have been my teenage experiments with a product called Duotan, which you never see nowadays, but was actually rather good.

So, the evening before last, I happily rubbed the Soltan into my pasty white British flesh which has barely seen the sun for years. As soon as the deed was done, of course, Dave openly confessed he has a strong aversion to fake tan. 'It's disgusting,' he said. 'It's on your skin, urgh!' He refused to go near me again until I had showered most of it off.

I breezily disregarded his archaic attitude. I am too sick of that embarrassed feeling you get when you expose your goosepimpled bright white legs under the harsh lights of a London underground carriage to care what my boyfriend thinks, frankly.

But then, as the colour emerged, I found that I was a kind of streaky technicolour orange. I literally looked like I'd been Tango'd (NB, by the way, believe me, I have no sympathy with anything to do with those adverts). To make matters worse, my skin was covered in gold glitter, of the kind I haven't worn since I was an undergraduate. The tan gave off a chemical afterscent which was so bad that night neither Dave nor I could sleep for hours! And, final insult of insults, despite me washing my hands thoroughly after applying the tan, the bloody stuff has left dark brown stains around my fingernails which no amount of scrubbing and washing has been able to remove.

I'm looking down at my hands now as they type and they look like I have dipped my fingertips in marmite. In shops I am having to clench my fists so the people at the tills don't get frightened.

I fear this post will in fact be symptomatic. I love moaning about consumer issues.