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            As an avid Girls Aloud fan, I was eagerly awaiting good old Nicola’s documentary yesterday evening about the pressure that people feel under to be tanned. On holiday a few years ago, my good friend and renowned joker introduced me to some new friends she had made as ‘Casper’; hopefully this comment will emphasise to you how outlandishly pale I am. Consequential to my Irish heritage, I am shocked if I manage to gain so much as a freckle in the summer months, and have to spend my days applying copious amounts of Factor 50. Therefore this documentary was not only a way of catching up with one of my favourite girls, but it was actually something I was genuinely affected by and interested in.

            I’m not an enormous fan of fake tan. Sometimes the mood will strike me to wear it, but it smells a bit like wet dog and is a right pain to apply. I say this because if I do wear it, I’m not going to do it half heartedly and make smears and smudges for myself; no, instead I do the sensible things such as shave the day before, exfoliate myself for an eternity (paying particular attention to the knees, ankles and elbows, naturally) and make sure that I use the lasting ones- no one wants to go to all that trouble to have it wash off in the shower the very next morning. Sun beds do nothing to me because I am literally too pale for them to have anything to catch onto so I never even go there. But realistically, if I was in a position to catch a natural tan, I think that I would definitely be pursing it more often. This is what Nicola found to be a common view in the documentary, particularly in relation to the people of Liverpool.

            The fact that Nicola returned to Liverpool for her documentary was not shocking to me for two reasons. Initially, it made sense that Nicola wanted to focus on Liverpool since she, herself, is from Runcorn. However, as the BBC cameras began panning across such familiar tanning parlours on the likes of Bold Street and amongst Liverpool One, I took a moment to reflect and realised that we are constantly surrounded by places to tan in Liverpool. When she claimed that Liverpool was where the highest per cent of sun damage was occurring, I didn’t bat an eyelid because I remembered some of the many times I had walked past the likes of “Unlimited Sun Bed Minutes This Month for £30”. Perhaps I am more self conscious about being pale because I am always surrounded by glamorous and tanned girls in the Merseyside.

            Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel inadequate for being pale, but honestly I do sometimes wish that I could have a little more colour. It’s about feeling slim more than anything else, which was something that another lady shared on the programme when she was quickly stopped and interviewed on the street. When you’re pale, your lumps and bumps and muffin tops feel ten times worse than when you are looking at a nice, svelte and tanned body. In fact, those lumps and bumps feel like smoother, sexier curves, as opposed to chubby bright flesh that needs a good toning at the gym. Despite not being a huge fan of fake tan, I always put a little bit of bronzer on my face, just to make myself look a little ‘healthier’.

            But this is the ironic thing. Those tanned people who look healthier are actually the ones who are really at risk of becoming unwell. During the course of the documentary, Nicola spoke to a number of people who had been affected by skin cancer, either directly or as a result of losing a family member to it, and she even sat in and watched as one sun bed addict had cancerous moles removed in surgery.

            With confidence and realism, Nicola managed to promote the beauty of being pale, something that she had already worked toward through creating her Dainty Doll make up range for Jelly Pong Pong during the reality series The Passions of Girls Aloud for ITV2. I genuinely think that Nicola has embraced her paleness, and rather than using her celebrity status merely for the good of influencing young girls, she actually feels fabulous in her natural self. After watching the show, I realised that I’m actually thankful that I don’t tan easily, because now I never pursue it. Some of the people featured, however, used their ability to tan to extremes, using illegal tanning injections and constantly risking their health (and not to mention compromising their beauty by wrinkling their skin) on the sun beds. The documentary helps people to see the real effects behind the statistics and is an obligatory view for anyone affected either way by tanning.

 

To view the documentary on BBC iPlayer, click here.

 

If you’re feeling confident as a pale princess and want to embrace and highlight your skin, click here to have a look at Nicola’s Dainty Doll range and buy online.