5th March

I’m going to Tenerife on Friday for a Sun Page 3 shoot so I’ve booked myself into my local beauty salon to get a St Tropez spray tan. I always get one before a shoot if I can. I use St Tropez because I like the golden colour it gives. I’ve tried Fake Bake and California tan but I always go back to St Tropez. I only get a thin coat to avoid looking Tangoed and also because it comes off less patchy. I don’t know what Chantelle Houghton has been thinking recently with that overly orange tan! Although I’m slightly addicted, if I’m honest, fake tans actually really do my head in! I’ve had so many disasters. It doesn’t actually matter if a model has a tan or not because due to my best friend Photoshop, you can be made to look browner, but I still like to get one as it boosts my confidence and makes me feel sexier on a shoot. I walk in the salon feeling all pale and ill-looking and walk out feeling pretty damn hot ☺ ! It’s amazing what a difference it can make. Even with no make-up and my hair scraped back I feel so much prettier.

There are a load of bad things I could say about spray tans, though. The most annoying thing is that you have to wait 10 days before you can apply your next tan because you have to wait for it to fully come off to avoid the next tan going on patchy. The problem is that the tan only looks good for 3-4 days and then starts to come off in some places faster than others, for instance where my bra touches my skin, leaving me with patchy boobs. It’s a nightmare arranging when to get a tan done to avoid having a shoot on a patchy day. A make-up artist once told me that Dove body wash strips fake tan off your body but as I’ve always used and loved Dove bath products I dismissed it and carried on using my favourite shower wash. It was only the other day when I ran out of Dove and had to use some Radoxbody wash that my friend had left and found that the make-up artist was actually right all that time ago because my tan lasted so much longer!

Everyday self tans like Johnsons holiday skin etc are good for some people but not if you’re a model. I would strongly recommend not using DIY self tans if you’re a model as they can get a bit patchy, and retouching patchy, streaky tans is a photographer’s nightmare. A lot of girls use sunbeds but I’ve stopped to prevent regretting it when I’m old and wrinkly or worse. Sun beds are so dangerous. I do use them a few times before a holiday, though, to prepare my skin. When you get a spray tan you have to leave it on for 8 hours minimum before washing it off so I always book the tan as late as possible in the day, so I can do nothing once it’s on apart from watch Eastenders and go to sleep. Oh, another tip, wear an old tracksuit as it comes off all over your clothes and although it washes off I wouldn’t risk it. Also, wear something loose to prevent it rubbing of as much as possible.