Ah, fake tan.
The teenage staple of any dodgy underage disco, questionable pre-drinks in a field, or family event where Aunty Mary keeps asking you if you’ve met any nice boys lately.
By association then, fake tan made its appearance in secondary school around the country – whether it was permitted or not.
And whether you wanted it there or not really didn’t matter because usually it just tended to stick to your body for four days more than you would have originally liked it to but sure look, what can you do?
There are many struggles that come with wearing fake tan in general.
… But the struggles that came with wearing fake tan in secondary school… those were a different beast.
1. Orange collars
You can tell a lot about a girl from the collar around her neck.
And, usually, that collar was lined with fake tan.
It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault either – there’s only so many times you can wash a shirt before accepting the inevitable: ‘this collar is always going to be lined with fake tan because that’s the kind of person I am.’
(And my mam won’t buy me any more new shirts.)
2. Your face never once your matched your neck
Not. Once.
Back in secondary school, who among us was privileged enough to say that they could afford two whole different types of foundation?
No one. That’s who.
For that reason, sticking a bit of tan on meant that your face absolutely never matched your neck.
The line was so clear, so visible, so hauntingly obvious but there was nothing you could do about it.
3. That one male teacher always made the ‘out tonight, are you?’ joke
“No, sir, I’m going home to do my eight hours of homework and cry about trigonometry – I’ve just had this tan on for about five days because my older sister’s mate said it was waterproof and she wasn’t wrong because I literally can’t get it off but thanks for asking.”
4. Orange socks
If you wore fake tan and your uniform included white socks you were royally fucked.
This applies to all socks that weren’t black, really.
Once everyone started rolling up their school skirts, everyone started tanning their legs just a little bit for school too.
You’d be a fool not to, like – what if the boys catch a glimpse?
This inevitable skirt rolling and subsequent tanning led to the destruction of many, many pairs of Dunnes cotton white socks – worn once and eventually ravaged by the cheap brown liquid you bought in Penneys for a euro, breaking your mother’s poor heart in two.
5. Brownish smudges over every copy book you owned
The urban legend that one can use fake tan and not end up with orange palms is one that had been tried and tested again and again and yet the result always remains the same – you’ll have orange palms and tan will be all over everything you touch.
Especially your copybooks.
Need to write a short story for English class? – There’ll be tan there.
Got a few maths problems to figure out? – No bother, tan will feature on the page.
Whipping up a quick scientific experiment on osmosis? – Cool, get your grubby tanned hands all over that diagram, girl.
6. You looked rotten, basically
Hey, at least we can admit our faults and move on with our lives.
