A Brit holidaymaker and her girl pals were slammed after they posed where it looks like they got sunburnt.
Lizzy Pittaway travelled to Alicante, Spain, for five nights with a group of friends.
At the start of their holiday, they posed at the airport to show their pre-holiday skin colour standing in front of Boots.
READ MORE: Holidaying Brit family-of-six forced to join ‘Hunger Games’ style sunbed war queues
- Advertisement -
They repeated the pose at the end of their trip to show off their tan.
Lizzy, of near Hillingdon, west London, posted the before-and-after clip on TikTok where it quickly went viral with 895,000 views and 800 comments.
But many criticised the holidaymakers saying they looked red.
One – named Bertie – said: “You were in Boots.
“Why didn’t you buy sun cream?”
- Advertisement -
Chandra added: “Tan or burn?”
Noelia said: “Girlies wear sunscreen.
“The locals feel bad for you when you walk around red as a lobster.
- Advertisement -
“It looks painful.
“I say this as a white as a ghost Spanish girl, skin cancer is not a joke.”
But one said: “Looks like you had a very good time.”
In response to the online backlash, Lizzy said: “We did use factor 50 sun cream consistently.
“And the lighting makes us look way redder than we actually were.”
She told What’s The Jam: “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 added: “I think mostly because people were shocked and outraged by the video, not necessarily because they liked it.”
Lizzy explained that she posted the video “without too much focus” when their return flight home was delayed.
She said: “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’.
“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 suncream, and are going to get skin cancer.
“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 suncreams.
“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 uni student Lizzy and her pals Morgan, Jules and Mary slathered themselves in cream every day, she admitted that “a few of us did get a little bit sunburnt”.
“But nothing unusual that we hadn’t experienced before,” she added.
“We were continually applying suncream and were in the shade or pool for most of the day.
“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 suncream to be safe.
“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.”
Lizzy added: “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.”
READ MORE: Holidaying Brit couple furious at hotel’s ‘unfair rules’ when it comes to sunbed reservations
