Does being a consumer these days really have to be so complicated? Even fake tanning’s becoming an issue, although not so much of an ethics one, as an Essex one. Actually, that joke doesn’t really work any more now that the Essex aesthetic has gone national. But that’s the point. Fake tans started, as fashions often do, with an elite. Crazy but true: ten years ago, it was quite chic to get your tan from a bottle, especially if you got someone else to apply it for you, professionally. This suggested that you knew your UVBS from your AHAs and DVDs and were elegantly indifferent to the lure of a Benidorm bake-out. Plus it proved you could afford – I don’t think we can underplay this factor – to pay £50 to get someone to spray you.

But a lot of dihydroxyacetone has passed under the bridge since then. Fake tans have become synonymous with a certain shade of orange drink, and if not orange, then with an underlying greenish tinge, and if not the tinge, then with streaks, and if not streaks, then with a certain unmistakable odour.

All bad enough. But then we learnt that faking it could be toxic. Well, we all knew that was coming, right? Whether the toxicity is significantly worse than that lurking in all the other body creams we slap on remains to be proved – but to be on the safe side, I’ve converted to the Organic Pharmacy’s fake tan on the grounds that, a) it smells nice; b) it doesn’t seem to streak; and c) it would be richly ironic if in trying to avoid skin cancer, we all got leukaemia.

Then again, according to an article in The Ecologist, a little bit of real sun would benefit us all more than the industrial quantities of fake tan we’re pouring on. Good point. Must be a vitamin D thing. But we’re not renowned in this country for being able to do anything in little bits. And big bits only play into the hands of one’s free radicals.

So, it’s wrinkles versus smells; organic versus the lure of those inexpensive daily tanning moisturisers which may well be twice as toxic, since they’re doing two jobs in one; chic and pale and just a bit flabby-looking versus slightly chavvy but feeling great. I know where I stand, and officially it’s with Cate Blanchett and Madonna in the Pale Is Interesting debate. It’s just that, on me, pale doesn’t look that interesting. On me, there’s something about summer clothes that requires a bit more than acres of white flesh. Ah yes, I’ve got it: it’s the fact that they’re not winter clothes.

P.S. Apparently it’s alkaline surfaces that produce the Tango look. If you wait half an hour after you’ve showered with alkaline soap to apply, you should be OK. Just thought you’d like to know.