Snow White goes bronze - Lily Cole and Rimmel Sunshimmer

It's that time of year again, though it seems the memo may have missed our own fair isle. Yes, summer is on our doorstep and though the rain may still be falling outside, the cosmetic companies have launched their annual blitz of bronzing campaigns. I am never particularly grabbed by the summer beauty collections - bronzer and fake tan just aren't my thing and unless it's really necessary, I rarely even bother with a gradual tanner to warm up my pale skin.

This year, however, I was stopped in my tracks (quite literally, while walking through the Dart station on the way to work) by the Rimmel Sunshimmer advertisement, featuring the lovely Lily Cole. With her red hair and porcelain complexion, I'm more used to seeing Lily in features on the beauty of pale skin. And yet here she was, all glowing honey-toned limbs and sun-kissed complexion. The look wasn't overdone either - she didn't look as if she'd been roasting on a Mediterranean beach for weeks, more as if she'd been strolling around in summer sunshine and just picked up a pretty glow. Perhaps even I, ever fearful of looking orange or (even worse) downright dirty when applying bronzer could manage this look.

The products in the Rimmel Sunshimmer range (comprising instant tanning products for both body and face) are all available in two shades - Golden for the fairer-skinned among us and Bronze for those more likely to tan naturally. It only makes sense that cosmetic companies are putting more energies into targetting bronzing products at the paler end of the skin spectrum - we make up a pretty good portion of the market in countries such as Ireland and the UK, after all. And with the popularity of sunless tanning products continually growing, it seems that the glowing, sunkissed look will not be falling out of favour any time soon.

Who knows - if the sun manages to appear for any length of time this summer, maybe even I will be giving this sunkissed thing a try...