'We want a year round tan'

We all love sunshine, and in the past few days no doubt most of us will have grabbed the chance to bask in the warmth now that summer seems finally to have arrived.

Most of us are all too conscious of how dangerous exposure to harmful UVA and UVB rays is, and carefully apply high-protection sun-cream, or avoid the sun altogether if our skin is particularly vulnerable.

Yet despite a torrent of publicity about the risks of skin cancer and premature ageing, some women are still prepared to gamble with their health in pursuit of a year-long suntan.

Shockingly, new research could indicate that we are on the brink of an epidemic of skin cancers among young women.

Professor Mark Birch-Machin is a skin cancer researcher and expert at the University of Newcastle who is studying the effect of sunburn on DNA.

He says: 'Young women in the UK are setting a skin cancer timebomb for themselves by continuing to use sunbeds and ignoring safe suntanning advice from cancer organisations.

'In the next few decades, cases of skin cancer will rise considerably - by exactly how much is impossible to tell yet - as we reap the rewards of our past behaviour.

'We are probably in the early stages of an epidemic, and the statistics in Australia - which is only just seeing a levelling out of new skin cancer cases after three or four decades of safe-sun warnings - should be a lesson to us.

'My recent research shows that just seven hours of unprotected Mediterranean sun on typical Anglo-Saxon skin is enough to cause the irreversible damage which can later become skin cancer.'

So why are some women still determined to ignore all the advice? We speak to three selfconfessed sunbathing addicts. ANITA GARNER, 31, was formerly a colourist at London hair salon Daniel Galvin and now runs her own business importing art and antiques from Bali. She lives in Sydenham, South London.

Anita says: Even as a teenager, I always loved to be tanned. I remember when I was as young as 15, I thought it would be fantastic if I could be brown all year round. I much preferred the way I looked in summer, when my shoulders and legs were tanned and my face had a golden glow.

Now, I have deliberately structured my life so that I get three guaranteed spells of gorgeous tropical sunshine spaced throughout the year.

For the past three years, I have travelled to Bali in January, mid-summer and late autumn for four weeks at a time on working holidays. I meet business contacts, socialise and source furniture and houseware to import into the UK.

When I'm out there, I never wear more than a factor two sunscreen, so when I get back I am quite dark.

And because I go for longer than the average two-week holiday, and I don't let my tan fade between trips, I come back with a colour that lasts - not the surface tan most people have that fades or peels quickly.

To 'set' the tan, I always have two sunbed sessions quite close together within the first ten days of returning. Then I'll have a sunbed every three weeks to keep it topped up - with an extra one every now and then if I'm feeling pasty.

I always go to the same salon, Ultraglow, which is five minutes from my house, and I'm such a regular that the owner, Janet, has become a friend. She advises me on the best new sunbed tanning products, and I usually use an accelerator to maximise the sunbed's effects.

Part of the reason I love being tanned is that I'm not a big fan of make-up, and with a tan you don't need to wear much.

Clothes look better if you're revealing golden-brown flesh instead of pale, mottled skin, and I feel one hundred times more confident naked when I'm brown.

I have read about the risks of skin cancer, but I believe it's no risk for me because I have olive skin and have never burned. Also, I don't lie out in the sun for extended periods.

brown is as much a part of me as having green eyes. I do have a few moles on my body - and I know you are meant to keep an eye on them - but they all seem perfectly normal.

I've heard that your lips are especially vulnerable to skin cancer, so I always wear sunblock on them.

About five years ago, my dentist commented on a freckle in the middle of my lower lip and said I should have it checked out. I had it cut out in hospital, which was very painful, but it turned out to be harmless.

I just know I'm not harming myself by having a year-round tan.

Bianca Bucchaus, 23, lives in Battersea, South London, and is a film and television student at Roehampton University in Surrey.

She says: My mum is Swiss and has the most beautiful olive skin, of which I am incredibly envious. I am quite fair and freckly, and don't tan easily like she does.

I started using sunbeds about seven years ago, and since then my use has escalated to the point where I'm now addicted.

It started when I went to sixth form college. In the summer, I went away on holiday with two girlfriends. They were both dark-skinned and I was very self-conscious at the thought of wearing a bikini next to them, so I went on a sunbed course before the trip and loved the results.

Gradually, I got hooked, and for the past couple of years I've been on a sunbed virtually every other day. Clothes look better, my figure looks better and late nights just don't show when you are brown.

I'm an expert on all the different kinds of sunbed - I know exactly what result each gives and which is best value for money.

At my usual salon I pay about £6 a session, but I'll often pay up to £13 if I can't get to my local salon and need a session.

As I'm a student, the proportion of my money I spend on sunbeds is ridiculous. It comes to at least £1,500 a year, which is the cost of two or three holidays.

I don't care about the health effects of my sunbed use - I just think it won't happen to me. I smoke, too, so I think that's more likely to kill me than skin cancer.

I do worry about the ageing effects, however. I'm only 23 but my skin has definitely become more leathery in the past year.

If I saw very strong signs of ageing, I might try to stop - but it would be very difficult. I've tried fake tan but it's just not the same. It doesn't give me the same 'fix' as a sunbed and the tan it gives just does not feel real either.

My mum runs a beauty salon and she won't have sunbeds in it. She feels they are very dangerous and constantly tells me I'm risking my life because of my tanning addiction.

I go away a couple of times a year on a beach holiday and I love the really dark tan I get from being in the sun all day. But to be honest, sunbathing frustrates me because it takes too long to get a good colour.

I use a factor eight for the first couple of days, then go down to a four for the rest of the holiday. Before I started using sunbeds, I always used to burn. Now I never do - so, if anything, I think I'm protecting myself by using them.

Charlene Gregory, 19, is a hairdresser from Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.

She says: Everyone looks better with a tan, no matter what their skin tone is, so why not have one?

I like to wear revealing clothes, and they would look terrible if I was pale. A tan is the easiest way to boost your looks all the time, and it makes a huge difference to how I feel about my body and my appearance generally.

I don't earn that much yet, so I can't afford to go much further than Spain for holidays. When I go away, my main purpose in the day is to tan. It can be boring, but it's worth the result.

The tan you get from going on too many sunbeds is very fake, but in the sun I go very dark - and it's a lovely, natural, deep brown. I don't use any protection in the sun, just zero-factor oils to boost the tanning process.

I never burn, although I go a bit red before I go brown. But I don't peel, so I assume I can't be doing myself any harm.

I'm back from my holiday, I go for a sunbed about once a week to keep the tan. It costs me about £7 a session, so I suppose I'm spending about £350 a year on sunbeds alone.

I've tried fake tan, but it just doesn't seem to have a very strong effect - plus most of them give a really orangey colour, which I hate.

I've read about all the controversy over the detrimental health effects, but, to be honest, I don't think there's any hard evidence so I don't worry too much.

My boyfriend says I look just as nice with or without a tan, and my brother is always nagging me to give up my obsession, saying it will give me skin cancer.

I tell him that it's natural to tan, and that if sunbeds were really harmful then the Government would have banned them.

Maybe if I was very pale- skinned I'd think harder about giving up my addiction - but if there are risks, then I don't think they apply to me.