Nothing rhymes with orange skin

Now that the warm weather is officially here, I have embarked on one of the less-enjoyable summer rituals... getting my legs skirt-ready. This involves frequent shaving, exfoliation, moisturising and toe-nail maintenance to ensure my lily white leggies are ready to bare in public (I find that shining them up nicely and enhancing their reflective capabilities also makes for an incredibly effective weapon... something like Scott/Cyclops' from X-Men's optic blasts, only better).



And so I come back to the annual and eternal conundrum... to self-tan or not to self-tan.



See, my skin doesn't understand the concept of tan. It's like trying to explain colour to a dog. There's just black and white. Or in my case, lobster sunburnt red or pristine white (I make milk look tanned). So for-real tanning is not an option. Unless I want skin cancer to be. Which I don't. Obviously.



And as for self-tanning... I'm just not sure about it. Sometimes I convince myself that the fact that it's a) expensive, b) smells odd (not bad, just... odd), c) often goes horribly wrong (see below) is enough reason to stay away from the idea.

Plus, I'm a carrot-top. Orange hair + orange skin = major fashion FAIL. And I figure that if I were meant to be tanned, God wouldn't have given me skin that can't tan.

BUT... on the other hand...

These blinding white limbs of mine are just not fashionable, you see. Yet every season without fail someone pityingly tries to convince me that "pale skin is in again". Not since the Renaissance, sista! I should have been born back then, I tell you. I'd have been deemed a goddess... short, curvy and deathly pale - the antithesis of modern beauty, but everything Michelangelo could've wanted in a wife. Or wait, wasn't he gay?

Anyhow... My husband tans deep bronze within five minutes of being in the sun and never burns. So my glow-in-the-dark skin is even more obvious when we walk next to each other. I could just make him walk on the other side of the street, but that self-tan is starting to look appealing.

Being the only glow worm on the beach among the squillions of tanned bikini-clad babes is not fun. Especially when I'm not particularly bikini-confident in the first place. Of course, being a streaky-legged unnaturally orange glow worm would also not be cool.

But you should see how my ivory skin photographs under a camera's flash. People could submit the pics as one of those weird and unexplained "ghosts just show up as glowing white blobs in photos" kinda things. Or vampires. It would explain why I'm not a morning person and don't like garlic.

Self-tan would also make buying make-up foundation easier. I could go for a colour that normal shops stock. Not one that you hardly ever find in store because the manufacturers generally only sell it to Asian drag queens and traditional mime artists.

Maybe I just haven't found the right product. I mean, I've only tried like six gazillion or so (slight exaggeration). Creams smell, sprays streak, mousses apparently dye your arm hair more than your skin and there's always the chance of orange palms unless you wear gloves. Perhaps filling a baby pool with bronze paint would be more effective?

Advice anyone?