I am a white girl.

And as far as white girls go, I’m on the lower end of the scale as far as melanin production goes.

I’m fair.

I am 75% Nordic/British Isles and 25% Portuguese.

I joke that this means that I burn easily, but can hold a tan.

It’s true though.

Every summer when I was growing up, I’d slather myself in baby oil and lay out at the pool for 30 minutes.

I’d get a wicked burn which would fade into a beautiful tan.

Those were the days (before skin cancer warnings).

Briefly, I went to the tanning salon and laid in their (cancer inducing) beds and got a lovely tan as well.

But no more.

I have to be good and take care of my skin.

So, I get spray tans.

Recently, I’ve decided I’m going to try to do it myself and I bought Cocoa Brown Tan Mousse and a pink velvet glove to apply it.

[Side note:  I’m sorely tempted to use the pink velvet gloves for bedroom activities and NOT self-tanner application.]

I want to be brown like the models we see in summer ads – all long legs and golden shoulders.

I know I can’t get their bodies, but it seems unfair to deny me their color as well.

I don’t want to be pale anymore.

I want to be TAN!

And with my trip to Burning Man coming up, it’d be nice to be more bronze goddess and less pale ice queen.

[Post script:  I’ll let you know how it goes.  I bought the darkest mousse on the market so I could turn out striped like a zebra!]