THE LAST time I tried using fake tan was back in the days when it really did make you look as if you had been run through a sheep dip of Irn Bru concentrate. Lotions and potions have moved on and skin cancer has proved enough of a scare to drive the self-tan market, but in the meantime I have learned to live with, if not quite love, my dazzling alabaster, corned beef, peely-wally, porcelain, purple- spotted, milk bottle legs.

The world, however, has not. Despite increasing UK skin cancer figures of almost 9000 melanoma diagnoses a year, most Caucasian types see a golden glow as the ultimate beauty asset. Almost universally, people feel they look healthier with a tan. Research shows we associate it with high status. Brown is like thin, deeply rooted in our conception of health and attractiveness.

Like most people, I find myself complimenting friends on how well they are looking after a week in the sun. "Can a pale-skinned girl still be hot?" is the question posed on one internet chat-room.

Well, can it? Apparently not. In Scotland, where sun is hard to come by, there have been reports of teenage girls using their school-dinner money to take a lunchtime sunbed, as a way of becoming hot on both beauty fronts: slim and tanned. In the process, they could be damaging their skin.

As the Scottish sun emerged for the first time last weekend, so did the annual dilemma: to bare one's hidden pasty bits or not. One friend told me she had considered putting her shorts on, but resolved instead to remain covered for the entire season: the shock of the white might just be too much. Another went into emergency Fake Bake mode.

This is not just an issue for women. Many men are willing to cook in the sun to achieve their favourite shade of bronze. The difference is that women are more likely to turn to the bottle in order to achieve that golden glow.

Faking it has the advantage of being the only way of getting a tan without risking skin cancer. Neither sunbeds nor sunbathing are safe, points out Glasgow University dermatology expert Professor Rona Mackie: "If someone is determined to have a tan then some of the modern fake tans are quite good."

Indeed, the whole issue of how much sun we should or shouldn't have is so complicated, that it seems the best policy is to stay indoors smelling of biscuits. Slathering yourself in SPF before toasting on the beach, for instance, may prevent burning and some forms of the skin cancer, but melanoma, the most malignant form, has been found to have increased incidence in those using SPF creams.

One theory for this could be that people using SPF are staying out in the sun too long in the erroneous belief that it is safe. "I have always advised limiting time in the sun, being sensible around noon and the use of clothing as protection," says McKie. "You can't just put on the cream and lie on the beach in your bikini and expect that to prevent it."

Meanwhile, as awareness of the sun's damaging effects has grown, so the fake tan itself has evolved, not just in terms of how it looks but how it is perceived. Sandra McClumpha, the Scottish entrepreneur who recently bought the rights to Fake Bake in the USA, explains: "Before, there was a stigma attached to using self-tan. Things have moved on now. People think you're off your head going out in the sun or using a sunbed. You can get the same colour in one application - a better colour, in fact."

But aren't these products merely perpetuating the problem, by continuing to peddle a fantasy of the "healthy tan"? Why not simply embrace our outer pastiness? McClumpha believes this kind of attitude to change is unrealistic: "Some say we should appreciate pale skin, but people don't want to, and they haven't done since the 1920s. People look better and feel better when they've got a bit of colour. That's never going to change."

Anti-skin cancer campaigners seem to concur with this, preferring to opt for promoting fake over real rather than attack the tan as a cultural norm. Rebecca Russell, campaign manager of Cancer Research UK's Sun Smart campaign, says: "Pop culture, fashion, celebrities are all forces that promote this and it's beyond the reach of a cancer charity to counter it. So, for those who do continue to wish to have a tan, we advise against sunbathing and sunbed use. We are encouraging people instead to opt for a fake tan as preferable."

Skin colour is a culturally complicated and frequently politicised issue. At the same time as millions of white-skinned people apply fake tan, there are many in Japan, Asia, America and other parts of the world who whiten. "Obviously it would be great if we could all accept our natural skin colour, but that isn't happening," says MacKie. Yet the penchant for a tan is purely a question of fashion. Shakespeare's sonnet My Mistress's Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun includes the line: "If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun", precisely because dun, a mousy shade of brown, was considered unattractive in his day.

The messages we receive about skin colour are often conflicting: a fact highlighted by the modelling career of Scottish high-jumper Barbra Kolasinski. While her red-haired, pale-skinned complexion is promoted as an asset in many of her modelling roles, her most high-profile job sees her bronzing up as the face of Fake Bake. Two different ideals of beauty are represented in Kolasinki, and the latter appears to be the mainstream one.

The message seems to be that even the most gorgeous of pale-skinned people long to be brown. Kolasinski herself recalls envying schoolfriends who tanned easily. When she applies the Fake Bake product, even this young woman whose beauty has been ratified by the modelling industry, feels better about herself. "It gives you a bit more confidence with a wee bit of tan."

In celebrity land, the messages around skin tone are equally confused. While most celebs sport a tan, a few are prized precisely because they buck this trend. The raven-haired, Snow-White-skinned star Dita Von Teese is reported to have taken sun-blocking curtains with her on a recent trip to Cannes. Meanwhile, the complexions of stars such as Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett or Julianne Moore are variously described as luminous, porcelain or translucent: never as pasty or peely-wally or corned beef-textured. Yet, when we look at our own flesh that's exactly what we see: discolourations and mottlings that might just be improved by a tan. Pallor continues to be perceived as unhealthy, despite the known health problems associated with tans.

To draw a parallel with smoking and lung cancer, using fake tan is a bit like carrying around fake cigarettes in order to continue to look glamorous and, bizarrely, more healthy. Perhaps it is time to stub it out.