No orange ladies anymore.

I love birthdayvisits.
These occassions are such a nice way to see people a few times a year and talk about all sorts of subjects and share memories.

Because one of the ladies brought up the nice summercolours of some people, we hit the subject of indoor tanning lotions.

It's about 30 years ago that an expensive brand launched a new product: a tanning lotion that could be applied directly on the skin and didn't need any sunlight to create the perfect summer look.

Our neighbour, who always wanted to be nicer, better and more modern than all the other ladies living in the street, bought this product and at a tuesday evening she told her husband to get a cup of coffee at our place and she closed the door..... and didn't want to open it again.

It took a lot of talking and promisses not to laugh before she let her husband in.

She was orange.

Not a bit. A lot!

Then my mother was called, who had a burst of laughter too, and they all had the plan to call the hairdresser of the village to ask him for advice.

he had none, as he didn't know the cream, but he advised to take a bath with bathsalt and maybe it would go away.

The good soak didn't work.

One of our nieces was called. She was a hairdresser and beautician.
Her only advice was to scrub... and call the factory.

So the neighbour tried to scrub it off, which didn't work and in the morning the factory was called.

Turned out they recalled the products a few weeks before, due to long lasting colour effects. All they could do was to send a courier with a product that might cover the orange.

For weeks my neighbour looked like she's bathed in shoepolish.
Her skin was shiny brownish, so everyone knew that she'd used something to look better.

After many weeks she started to look normal.

Something like that won't happen anymore.
Products are tested and retested before they're put on the market.
Now one is offered a variety of products to tan the skin and these products are subject to a large list of requirements.

No orange ladies anymore.