Hooray! Summer! Pimm’s, and maxi dresses, and barbeques – and the sun. Arguably one of the best bits of summer, right? Well, not if you’re one of the unfortunate people whose skin has the same reaction to sunlight as Katie Price does to a Laura Ashley tea dress. For you, it’s big hats, sun cream, and cover-ups all the way, because that sun is out to get you, and it is fierce. So, here’s to us: the people who don’t tan…
1. Certain colours are off limits, unless you want to look totally washed out. Here’s looking at you, yellow.
2. You can’t look at other people’s holiday snaps on Facebook without getting massive tan envy.
3. In group photos, you shine like an extra from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
4. You hate having to buy the lightest foundation – or worse, your shade’s not there so your face ends up a different colour from your neck.
5. Some people burn, then tan. You just burn, then lose all your skin.
6. Occasionally, you try wearing bronzer, but you end up looking like a dirty, consumptive orphan from Oliver.
7. When your friends want to sit in the park/on the beach/generally outside, your first concern is finding the shade.
8. You’re locked in a battle between a high SPF so you don’t fry, or a lower one so that you at least give your skin the chance to brown up.
9. Moisturiser with fake tan is your best friend. Until it turns the bits between your fingers orange.
10. You’ve considered using a sunbed. At least you can ask for a refund if you’re still whiter than the top of Everest.
11. When you come back from a holiday, you never hear the words, ‘Wow, you’ve caught the sun!’
12. Cute summer dresses just highlight the, ‘I grew up underground’ look
13. However, weird tan lines from strappy swimsuits are not an issue for you.
14. In the occasional instance that you do get a little sun-induced colour, you show it off to literally everyone you meet. ‘Look! My arm is slightly darker than my thigh!’
15. Friends often use your skintone as some kind of Dulux colour chart to prove how brown they are. Like it’s harder to be more tanned than a golf ball.
16. When you see a celeb rocking a pale skin tone, you instantly need to know all of their beauty secrets.
17. When people describe you as, ‘Pale and interesting’, you want to bite them.
18. People have no qualms telling you that you look ill. RUDE.
19. Finding a hat for hot days that doesn’t make you look like a tourist or the village idiot is an annual struggle.
20. Occasionally, you think, ‘Maybe this year my skin will have changed and I can go out in the sun without fear.’ You will, of course, be wrong.
(Written for Pretty 52).
Constant Spinner 