A British woman and a group of her friends spent five days in the popular Spanish tourist destination of Alicante and shared some before-and-after photos from the trip, but people have the same concern
A group of British holidaymakers have faced a wave of criticism after posting before-and-after photos illustrating their sunburns after a trip to Spain. Lizzy Pittaway and her friends enjoyed a five-night stay in the popular resort town of Alicante, which appeared to prove to be a sufficient amount of time to suffer noticeable sunburn.
The group began their trip by posing at the airport, showing their fair complexions against the backdrop of a Boots store. Once back in the UK, they recreated the picture, revealing the stark contrast after exposure to the hot Spanish sun. Lizzy, from West London, shared a before-and-after video to TikTok, which quickly went viral with 895,000 views and 800 comments.
The ladies were soon the subject of some harsh comments, however.
One TikTok user pointedly asked: “You were in Boots, why didn’t you buy sun cream?”
Another asked Lizzy: “Tan or burn?” Whilst a third person urged: “Girlies wear sunscreen. The locals feel bad for you when you walk around red as a lobster. It looks painful. I say this as a white as a ghost Spanish girl, skin cancer is not a joke.”
Amidst the backlash, however others were more positive, with one person remarking: “Looks like you had a very good time.”
Facing the criticism, Lizzy defended their skin care approach: “We did use factor 50 sun cream consistently. And the lighting makes us look way redder than we actually were.”
Speaking to What’s The Jam, she said: “This has been a trend on TikTok for a while now so we thought it would be a bit of fun for when we went on holiday. We posted several TikToks while out in Alicante, including outfit checks each evening, but for some reason this one just blew up.”
The 21-year-old continued: “I think mostly because people were shocked and outraged by the video, not necessarily because they liked it.” She explained that she posted the video “without too much focus” when their return flight home was delayed.
“I posted it while we were waiting at the airport and it wasn’t until the next day when I was like, ‘Whoa, this has actually gone quite big’,” she confessed. “The reaction was very mixed – friends and family thought it was quite funny and light-hearted, which was our motivation behind posting it.
“But then it started to get picked up by Spanish people, which is where most of the views and comments came from. They were quick to judge us and say that we were all sunburnt, don’t know how to use sun cream, and are going to get skin cancer.”
Lizzy further added: “While I completely understand the dangers of sunburn and skin cancer, we were all extremely cautious on holiday. We even did a pre-order at Boots prior to the holiday that we picked up at the airport, mostly made up of sun creams.
“Some of the comments were restricted because they were quite harsh. Luckily, I am able to take the comments and they haven’t affected me too much as I know the truth behind the video. But for some, many of these comments could be damaging, as people don’t often consider that there is someone on the other side receiving them. There was also a lot of division within the comments section with many people arguing among themselves.”
While the university student and her friends repeatedly slathered on sun cream during their holiday, she acknowledged that “a few of us did get a little bit sunburnt.”
“But nothing unusual that we hadn’t experienced before,” she confirmed, adding: “We were continually applying sun cream and were in the shade or pool for most of the day.”
She also pointed out the challenge of completely avoiding sunburn while exploring abroad, noting: “I would say that it is quite hard to avoid getting a little bit sunburnt when visiting another country and trying to explore the area. We did try to stay inside or in the shade when it got to the highest UV levels in the day and apply extra factor 50 sun cream to be safe.”
Lizzy concluded: “In no way did we intend for the video to promote getting sunburnt as obviously that is not cool and can be seriously dangerous. When we posted it, we obviously knew that we weren’t as sunburnt as the video made out and so didn’t think much of it.
“But the labelling of us as ‘guiris’, which I initially didn’t know the meaning of, is untrue as we were up to date with how to stay safe in Spain.”