Nice, 'bright' pins!

Are you tempted to hide your legs behind a handbag this season? If so, you are probably suffering from WLA. White Leg Anxiety reaches epidemic proportions at this time of year: the weather turns sunny, the shops are full of skirts and the only thing coming between you and spring nirvana is a pair of legs that haven't seen a ray of sunshine since last year's fortnight in Croatia.

There is real beauty in a pair of toned white pins - just not my own. Models might be able to get away with lily-white legs, but the more bovine among us need some help. It has always amazed me how, as soon as April comes, half of London suddenly seems to acquire a lustrous gold tan. After a few drunken surveys conducted in the pubs of Primrose Hill, I had a revelation: they're faking it.

Fake tans have moved on from the days when they turned your legs terracotta and stank of burnt flesh - so everyone informed me. But I was not convinced. And so a few days ago, I conducted a wee experiment. Balancing over the bath, I applied two different brands to my legs. The left one was sprayed with Au Courant, which is used by all the Hollywood stars, apparently (from £24.99; 020 7376 2870).

The right one was massaged with It ... is, the latest offering from Patsy Palmer and Charlotte Cutler's tanning range (from £7 at Boots).

Things would have gone quite well if I hadn't dripped a thin rivulet of water down each shin - something I wasn't aware of doing at the time but soon became woefully apparent after the tans developed.

Both are highly realistic: palest caramel rather than luminous orange, and without any discernible stench. Au Courant has the advantage of incorporating an instant bronzer, so that your legs change colour right away, although it is by far the messier to use. It ... is comes in mousse form, and is more easily controllable, though results take longer.

With miniskirts, shorts and ra-ras packing the shops already, it looks as though legs will be in the spotlight once more. Even if you'll only stretch to a flouncy kneelength skirt all summer, the new breed of fake tans can impart an extra dose of confidence. Meanwhile, I'm remedying my own White Leg Anxiety with a trip to Miami, where the forecast is for thunder and showers, and I'm likely to come back paler than I went. Save me a bottle of Au Courant, won't you?