Welcome To Sun School

Kelly Gilbert enrols at a tanning spa and leaves with a glowing report.

It's been six months since my week's holiday in the Maldives, but I'm reminded of it every morning in the shower because my tan lines still remain. This pleases me more than it should. I'm naturally pale, blotchy at worst, and oh, how nice it's been to wax-and-go in winter when the dress or occasion called for it. I did well at sun school, I tell myself. An A-grade student.

Because, you see, my tenacious tan isn't a freak body phenomenon. It's the product of science and effort (on my part, though not the kind that is going to prompt any pity). I enrolled at the Institut Esthederm Sun Spa in the Maldives, at the astonishing One and Only Reethi Rah resort, and learnt how to tan.

I pitched up alone on my first day to meet my tanning instructor, Monica Sanhueza, who was as golden-limbed as you might expect. "And where is your husband?" she smiled. "I've left him at the villa," I replied. (Scoffing, as it happened, but she didn't need to know this.) "He's Swiss/Welsh and goes red at the slightest sun exposure," I offered by way of an explanation. Monica looked confused. "Wouldn't you like to see your husband with a tan? It is essential he comes here! He will burn otherwise." And so I rang my husband and told him to cycle over because he had been guaranteed a tan. And that was something I wanted to see.

The Sun Spa was where it should be, which was on the beach and a short stroll from the loungers. It is essentially a glorious embroidered tent, comprising two treatment areas, a consultation space and an outdoor shower. The premise is this: you sign up and, in doing so, relinquish responsibility for your own sun-care application and hand your body over to the Sun Spa at prescribed times for sun preparation, product applications and after-sun care. We filled in a questionnaire to determine our skin types: I was "sensitive" and my husband "intolerant". Then our individual tanning programmes were worked out following a consultation that included a shaming "tan history", which required full disclosure of sunburn episodes. This was virtually every time I'd been away. I'd develop rosy shoulders or pink knees at some point after applying sunscreen and thought of it as par for the course. "It's only sunburn if it hurts in the evening," I offered, before immediately wishing I hadn't. But there was no judgement in the Sun Spa. Monica gave me a sympathetic smile and told me it is possible to tan evenly without turning red and for it to last, then fade, without peeling. I was sold. And signed up for the week.

It's a concept unique to Institut Esthederm, the niche French skincare company respected for its well-researched products (creams are selected according to skin type and the sort of sun exposure you'll experience, rather than by SPF ratings), and is one of just two in the world (the other is in Thailand). To me, its approach is enlightened: despite health warnings and threats of premature ageing, most Caucasian people like to tan, and if we accept that people tan, then we need to accept they burn, because it is a rare soul who applies sunscreen as the manufacturer prescribes (a tablespoon for every limb, every one to two hours). "Our philosophy is that we work with the sun and not against it," beamed Monica.

The process starts before you go away, with the patented Pre-Tanning Suncare spray to condition the skin and "turn on" your melanin response before you've set foot in the sun (because the faster you produce it, the quicker you are protected, and the deeper and longer your tan endures, apparently). I was sceptical but can report that by my second day in the Maldives I had developed such an unprecedented colour that I started searching the ingredients list for a fake-tan component (to find none).

And so we were submitted to pre-exposure exfoliation, hydrating mists and meticulous applications of sun cream. It was pushed between the toes, rubbed behind the ears and under the chin; not a square millimetre of exposed flesh was left out. This was not the haphazard, hasty application I am used to administering myself. I returned every two hours to have my cream topped up and be checked for hints of pink, then later to be congratulated on my changing skin colour and checked for an even result. If necessary, more cream or a higher protection was applied jigsaw fashion to ensure a uniform colour.

My tolerant, intolerant husband was requested to report back hourly for similar scrutiny. And did he get his first golden glow, aged 37? Remarkably, he did. For hypersensitive types, a "vaccine" approach is taken. The skin is fed micro doses of sunlight using a sun cream that filters out 90 per cent of UV rays. In doing this it learns to tolerate sunlight and react normally, contradicting conventional wisdom that this skin type should wear sun block or give up and stay in the shade. 

On day seven, after a lavish application of aftersun, which includes an ingredient to encourage my melanin to linger longer, I found myself reluctant to leave, wondering at the old me who applied my own body creams. My golden limbs gleamed, I looked radiant and, in Institut Esthederm-speak, I had "maximised my tanning potential". Yes, I might have balked at the time commitment involved but, just as the "cost per wear" justifies an expensive new coat, my subsequent tan endurance makes me feel that every application was worth it.

The doctrines have endured along with the tan lines. I recently visited friends in southern Spain and, in an unprecedented move while packing, I retrieved a clutch bag from my wardrobe for the sole purpose of transporting my sun care chicly around town. Because now, frankly, the idea of hastily rubbing in any old amount of cream that squirts out of the tube in the morning, then possibly adding a few drops on to a warming décolletage over a sunny lunch, seems utterly, completely insane.

Pictured: The beach at Reethi Rah in the Maldives (Reethirah.oneandonlyresorts.com), where Kelly put into practice what she'd learnt at Institut Esthederm's Sun Spa (Esthederm.com/En).