Claudia: I use so much fake tan I have to scrape it off with a sponge

WITH her thick black eyeliner, heavy fringe and a tan that’s close to tangerine, Claudia Winkleman certainly has a look of her very own.

And it seems she has to go to great lengths to achieve her signature style – claiming her fake tan is slapped on so thick she is forced to ‘scour it off’ with a kitchen sponge.

The Strictly Come Dancing presenter says she uses a yellow cleaning sponge to scrub off the layer of orange tan.

‘If you use the amount of spray tan I do, you need to scour it off with a kitchen utensil,’ the 46-year-old mother of two said.

When asked if the fake tan leaves ‘an attractive brown scum’ around her bath, she replied: ‘It’s so disgusting.’

While most fake tan enthusiasts prefer a natural glow, the TV star insisted she favours an ‘orange’ look.

Speaking on the In The Bathroom beauty video blog, she said she uses a spray tan brand called LA Tanning, adding: ‘It’s fabu- lous … Of course it’s orange. I want orange, I request orange.

‘If you were using a Dulux colour chart, if there was one on there that said tangerine, right at the bottom, the one where you say, “That’s going to be too much for our walls”, it’s not too much for me. Put it on.’

The TV presenter said her addiction to tanning started while she was a History of Art student at New Hall College, Cambridge.

She said: ‘I’d rented a sunbed for a whole term in tiny halls of residence…it was so unhealthy when I think back now.’ But the TV presenter revealed she now has someone come to her home to apply her spray tan in a pop-up tent.

‘I never get on the sunbed now,’ she said. ‘My body no longer recognises the actual sun.’

And although it is seen as a cardinal sin by skin specialists, Miss Winkleman said she always sleeps with her make-up on.

She added: ‘I’ve never once taken my make-up off before I go to bed.’