A young mother who says she is addicted' to tanning has admitted her pals are shocked by her appearance, as she gets darker and darker.
Lauren Nicole Thompson, 22, is mum to her three year old daughter Aveya and first began tanning at school.
Despite leaving her school friends in shock and the obvious health risks she has continued to use sunbeds, like her own mum did, as often as she can.
Lauren who would tan using sunbeds every day, for at least ten minutes and had to use one before going on a night out, said: "When I was young my mum would use the sunbeds constantly and I would always go with her and sit on the little chair by the sunbeds while she was under it.
The Liverpool Echo reported that Lauren said: "I always thought, 'God I can’t wait until I can do that' and then when I could obviously you feel delighted with yourself.
"At one point I was using the sunbed every day for 10 minutes every day. I would go into school and my friends would say 'oh my god'."
"It goes to your head where you feel like you need one.
"If I was going out for a night out I would never go out without having a sunbed the night before and it becomes addictive."
Lauren talked about her tanning addiction on BBC programme Tanorama about tanning addicts.
Although she now uses spray tans more often than not, at one point she used dangerous tan injections which she believes gave her kidney infections.
She said: "When you’re tan you don’t really care, as bad as that sounds.
"I started tanning when I was 18 or 19. I’m naturally very pale so I just like a bit of colour about me. I like a bit of a glow.
"There’s times when I would go a bit heavy and be a lot darker and I’ve been a bit tan shamed a couple of times in front of the mirror.
"I have seen photographs of me before and thought 'uhh'. It was just ridiculous but at the time I didn’t think I was that dark.”
BBC Tanorama is now available to watch on iPlayer.
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