After a life spent in the pale, beauty writer Bethan Cole wrestles her inner principles to become a card-carrying fake tan convert. In the middle of winter...

If you’re adhering to the latest trend of going bare-legged in freezing temperatures, you’ll may well be thinking about tanning your legs too. Indeed, increasingly we’re thinking about fake tan all year round; it’s become an addictive ritual for many to bronze and make yourself golden.

But for me, I must admit, it has been an issue. You see, I was a fully paid up tan-o-phobe. I’ve probably only had two or three tans during the last 25 or so years – and they were fleeting. It wasn’t so much to do with my being bookish and indoorsy – although this probably had something to do with it – too many summers spent indoors reading. It’s intrinsic to my very identity: enmeshed in the fact that since around 1987, I’ve been a card-carrying member of the punky/indie/arty/alternative rebel club. And being pale was crucial to this. Can you imagine John Lydon or Siouxsie Sioux with a suntan? Right. 

Siouxie Sioux and Debbie Juvenile, 1976

In the same way, none of the women that I admired or related to would be seen dead with a tan, from Poly Styrene and Viv Albertine to Bjork and Vivienne Westwood. If you’re an indie girl or a goth or a punk or a rockabilly, tanning is not part of your culture. Your culture says ‘refuse tanning’, tanning represents mainstream, conventional conformist beautification. Tanning is the look of bland, mediocre compliance, lets face it, it is the look of women who aspire to looking like Jennifer Aniston and it doesn’t get more girl-next-door than that.

"If you’re an indie girl or a goth or a punk or a rockabilly, tanning is not part of your culture"

What’s more, there’s an argument to say that tanning and in particular the unmistakable orange taint of fake tan has become déclassé – vulgar. It is now associated with women who have become famous on trashy reality shows for looks alone or who they are married too. Women who can be anathema to the book-reading, cultured, intelligent females among us. And yet, quickly we then veer into snobbish territory (and I hate snobbery).

Either way, this isn’t really the problem for me. What presents more of a problem is that tanning also channels the aesthetics of porn and no feminist worth their salt wants to look like a porn star. In the past, I’ve watched programmes like the BBC3’s makeover show, Snog Marry Avoid with incredulity – witnessing the parade of young women from the provinces of Britain whose beauty routines – consciously or unconsciously - seem to be all about emulating porn stars in all their tawdry glamour – with terracotta tans, pale pink lips, ironed straight hair and acrylic nails. 

Even so, despite all these very reasonable and logical objections, during the last six months, I have felt the magnetic lure of a golden glow. In fact yesterday, to be specific, I wandered down to my local beauty salon - the excellent Claremont Skin Clinic - and paid cold hard cash for a Vita Liberata spray tan. I want to be brown – or at least golden. It goes against my inner identity, it goes against all that I am internally, it goes against my principles, personality and predilections, but you know what, I can’t help but admit that it looks rather good. Now I’m 42, it’s all about looking good. It takes more effort, but I guess you have to put that effort in after 40.

"during the last six months, I have felt the magnetic lure of a golden glow"

The crucial thing is though, that I’m a size 18. For me, nothing looks worse than pasty, chubby, pallid flesh. When you’ve got rather more of that flesh, than say a size 8, a bronzed aesthetic is undoubtedly more pulchritudinous. It makes curves look, well, inviting rather than, dare I say it, lardy.

So I started experimenting with self tanners. The one that seems to work best for me is Cocoa Brown, which is Ireland’s best selling tanning product. I’ve probably compromised some of my dearly cherished identity and principles in opting for bronze – which I am rather sad about. But I guess, being a rebel isn’t as crucial at 42 as it was at 16 and mostly what I’m thinking is – if it’s flattering – embrace it.