Blanche comme un cachet d'aspirine

I've been complaining for a while now that I'm as white as a sheet. Now, when I say for a while, it means ever since the sun started shining and it became completely unavoidable to wear skirts, dresses, flip-flops and all sorts of items of clothing that show so much more skin than you really wish they did when, like me, you're tan-impaired.
Turns out the solution was staring me in the face.
No, I'm not going to spend my entire and rapidly dwindling disposable income on self-tan lotion (I tried, and my legs are so pale it doesn't actually make a difference, plus I'm a bit scared of the streaks); neither am I likely to have a wing named after me in some tanning salon mansion because I'll have spent more there than Bono when campaigning for the cancellation of third world debt.
I'll just wear my sunglasses.
Is that clever or is that clever? And just how did I stumble upon such a simple yet efficient solution?
Well I simply noticed yesterday, as we were sprawled on a hill in the Buttes-Chaumont park with a couple of friends, a couple of girlie magazines, and a couple thousand other Parisians, that I looked borderline healthy through the lenses of my new trusty accessory. The difference a flick of the head makes was really quite stunning. One second, I'm golden (yes, golden). Flick of the head: I blind myself, I'm so white. Golden. Blind. Golden. Blind.
I did play at that for a while, until my friends grew a bit tired of my Rain Man impersonation, by which time my mind was made: from now on, my face is not going to be seen without sunglasses. I'll be saving a fortune on make-up.