I am a pale person, I’m also a pale person with a horror of burning in the sun and although this summer I’m probably the most tanned I’ve ever been thanks to hours on the allotment, I’m not that tanned.

With the recent hot weather, I have not been keen to wear a lot of make-up and I do like to look sun-kissed, so when Salli Hughes’ beauty column in the Guardian recommended face self tanners and this one in particular. I bought a bottle.

It’s not going to make bad skin look good and the best way to have good looking skin without make up or tons of goop is still, not smoking, getting enough sleep, eating lots of fruit and veg and drinking a lot of water (that last one especially) I’m not very spot prone but I always used to get them on my chin when I was due on and the last two months I haven’t and only thing that change is that I’ve doubled my water intake to about 4 litres a day (yes it’s a lot, yes I go to the toilet loads but I don’t have a spotty chin which really matters to me!). Using the drops didn’t do much more that give my skin a glowy ‘I’ve spent all day on the beach’ look, which I’ve never successfully pulled off after a day on the beach!

I didn’t follow the application instructions either, every night I add three drops to my night time serum. I wash my hands, wait 10 minutes for it sink in and then go to bed. It doesn’t smell like fake tan and it’s doesn’t have a huge ‘orange effect’. It’s great and I’ll just keep using it until the bottle runs out, which should be October/November time at which point my natural pallor will resume but no-one will notice in the dark of the winter!