Sizzling and baking is a way of life when you have pale, Irish skin. I could wear Coppertone SPF 96,4578 and still walk away with an aura of pink around me on even an overcast day.
Oh to be tan. To wear a white tank top or swimsuit and have it gleam off a golden sunkissed body. That is one of my secret desires, and one that will always (painfully) elude me.
I spent most of teenage years attempting to try and thwart nature. I was determined to get a tan. I slathered up in baby oil and lay out on a plastic chaise lounge for hours at a time in our backyard. How I didn't manage to melt into the blue and white stripes of the lounge, I will never know. It's amazing that I was able to pry myself off the towel at all and be recognized without the use of dental records.
Seeing my blistering red screaming-all-night--whenever-anything-came-in-contact-with-my-ten-degree-sunburn, I was assured by my sunkissed, golden tanned pals as they liberally sprayed Solarcaine, this painful first step was the beginning of a really deep tan. Patience, they intoned. A golden tan will emerge.
Somehow I never got off that first step. The best I managed was an off-white color, more of an eggshell, than beige, that was only visible if I took off my wristwatch.
I did however, manage to keep more freckles coming out on my arms than ever expected and still to this day, I dream, that maybe, through divine intervention, they will melt together on a hot day like today and I will be sunkissed and golden at last.
So true. I remember sporting zinc oxide as an accessory in an attempt to prevent the skin on my nose from coming off in chuncks! Porcelain is the new tan, except when vanity wins over, then I reach for tan in a bottle. :~)
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