A sunburnt mum has been left looking as though she spent the day “in the arms of a sexy hunk” after a sunscreen application left her with two handprints across her shoulders.
Leanne Gresty was on a family day trip to New Brighton beach, in Merseyside last month, when she got out the sunscreen to protect both her four-year-old daughter Harriet, and herself.
Worried about her daughter’s shoulders getting burnt, the 35-year-old dabbed some on, before making an attempt at her back simply by slapping her hands over each shoulder.
But Leanne told the Manchester Evening News she had failed to rub the lotion in at all, meaning the only parts of her back with any protection from the sun were the two areas her hands had touched.
Leanne said she has been forced to explain the striking marks to baffled passers-by, many of whom have had shocked reactions.
Luckily, the healthcare assistant saw the funny side of the situation.
The mum-of-one even joked that she should have made up a better story, suggesting that rather than simply having applied the cream badly, “some sexy hunk” had his arms around her while she lay in the sun, instead.
She joked that it was a good advertisement for Boots sun cream, which clearly worked to prevent sunburn, even better so when applied correctly.
“Those hand marks were there for a couple of days afterwards,” she said.
Leanne said she hadn’t felt the marks at first, it wasn’t until her sister pointed out the marks that she realised something had gone amiss.
Thinking it was sand, her sister attempted to brush it off, to no avail.
"It's at that point I thought 'Oh god, that's where I put my sun cream on!” Leanne said.
"It was a very hot day, but we'd been by the beach with the sea breeze so we didn't really notice how hot it was. You just don't realise how strong the sun is.
"On that day, we all got caught out and burnt. It wasn't just me.”
Leanne said she had had worse sunburns, but acknowledged this one was a “bit sore”.
Upon returning home to Manchester, Leanne found that the hand marks were turning heads in the street, while her daughter’s friends all asked questions.
"But when people point it out, we've been having a laugh about it,” she said. “People at work were laughing when I showed them, but I had to pull back my uniform for them to see.
"Part of me did think that I could have just made up a story about how they got there. I could have said some sexy hunk had his arms around me the whole time. That would have been a better story. It would have been more exciting.
"But hopefully what people did think when they saw the marks was 'Ooh, that's an effective sun cream.'"
