'2026 is the year I stopped fake tanning - and I've never been happier'

Every Thursday night, for an embarrassing stretch of my adult life, I was virtually unavailable.

Not because I had plans, but because I had been fake tanning.

I would treat it as an innocent indulgence. However, I have come to realise there is nothing harmless about a habit that dictates your schedule for something with a two-day shelf life.

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Yet, as I sat in the stillness of a Thursday night spent actually relaxing – rather than scrubbing my skin raw – I began to realise exactly how much time and energy I was handing over to a bottle of fake tan.

If you've ever done it properly, you'll appreciate that self-tanning is less a quick step and more an entire evening you can't get back.

It starts with benign intentions, and ends with you hovering awkwardly around your own house half-dressed, trying not to graze a doorframe, usually sporting a band-aid or two from an overstimulated pre-tan shave.

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And still, for some reason, I was hooked.

Wearing a fake tan looked great for a window of time, I'll give it that. Though once those first few days had passed, the patches settled in for the long haul. By day three, it was less of a glow and more of an orange monstrosity I was stuck actively managing.

At one point, I decided the issue must be me and booked a professional spray tan, only to be told almost immediately, "Wow, you're really dry," which wasn't exactly the reassurance I was after.

From there, the routine became even more involved. Better exfoliants, heavier moisturisers, more time spent trying to perfect something that, realistically, was always going to let me down a few days later.

It also dictated more than I'd like to admit. I would even say no to certain plans, like going to the beach, or hesitate on a night out if I knew photos were involved and my legs looked like tiger bread.

In spite of the vanity, I feel a sense of relief that I no longer schedule my joy based on the colour of my skin.

The irony is that I was never interested in tanning in the traditional sense. My grandpa died from melanoma, so lying out in the sun was never an option. I just hated how I looked in photos.

This stretches back further than I'd like to confess, starting, like most of us, with a bottle of Jergens gradual tan. I applied it with the full confidence of my eleven-year-old self –and absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Stopping hasn't been some life-changing revelation of self-love.

It's been much more underwhelming, which is honestly the best part.

Aside from the eye-watering amount of money I've saved, my white t-shirts are finally safe from the permanent orange tint.

Seeing people like influencer Kylie Halbakken ditch fake tans altogether has made it easier to recognise how much of this is habit rather than preference.

The same is true for the ongoing fascination with people like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, or Dakota Johnson – both pale, both beautiful.

Which does make you wonder why being tan became the baseline in the first place, and why so many of us have just gone along with it without really questioning it.

Now I'm not pretending I'll never fake tan again. But for the time being, I'm hanging up the mitts in a move that's equal parts laziness and the simple relief of not feeling obliged.

There's nothing wrong with liking a tan – that said, if the cycle has started to feel like a chore you're performing on autopilot, it might be time to consider a break.

I did, and I've never appreciated a free Thursday night more.

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