The most expensive thing a model can bring to a swimwear shoot is a tan line.
Not a bad angle, not a late arrival, not the wrong shoes. A strap mark across the back, or a triangle two shades paler than the skin around it, has to be retouched out of every frame it appears in, and on a catalogue day that is most of them.
So the week before matters more than the morning of. This is what we ask of the models we book for Goa in season, and why each thing is on the list.
Seven days out: stop changing things
The week before a swimwear shoot is not the week to try anything new. No new skincare, no new hair colour, no diet you read about on Tuesday. Anything that can go wrong with skin needs five to seven days to settle, and the shoot is inside that window.
The sample is graded to the measurements you gave at casting. Trying to change your body in seven days will not make it fit better. It will make you tired and puffy, and the camera sees that before it sees anything else.
If a client wants a specific change, they will say so in the booking. If they have not said so, they booked what they saw.
Skin
Sun
You are in Goa, the sea is right there, and you have a shoot on Thursday. Stay out of the sun until Thursday.
Sunburn photographs as red and cannot be fixed on the day. A tan line that was not there at casting changes the colour story a client spent a month on. If you have to be outside, a high SPF, a hat, and a rash vest in the water, and keep the swim short because the vest leaves a line of its own.
The shoot day is different. You will be in the sun for hours and we carry sunscreen for exactly that. Bring your own as well, and make it a matte one. Anything with a shimmer or a tint reads as a sheen that fights the light.
Hair removal
Wax or thread at least three days before, never the day before. Fresh waxing leaves bumps and redness for forty-eight hours, and the camera finds them in every close frame of a bikini line or an underarm.
If you shave, the night before, with a fresh blade and nothing scented afterwards. Razor burn on the morning of the shoot is the same problem with a different cause.
We are not going to tell you how much hair to remove. That is between you and the brief. Whatever you decide, decide it three days out.
Exfoliation and moisture
A gentle exfoliation three or four days before, once. It sorts out the dry patches on elbows, knees and heels, all of which are in shot in swimwear and almost none of which are in shot in any other kind of work.
Not the day before. Freshly scrubbed skin looks raw under a flash for a full day.
Moisturise every night that week. On the morning of the shoot, use less than you want to. Oily skin catches light in patches, and the stylist would rather add a sheen where it is wanted than fight one that is everywhere.
The things that show
Bruises. Shins, knees, and the outside of the thighs, from a gym bench or a scooter or a doorframe. They take ten days to fade and they are in every full-length frame. For one week, treat your legs as if they were already in the pictures.
Elastic marks. This one surprises people, and it costs more time on set than anything else here. A tight waistband, socks, a bra strap, a watch. Each leaves a groove in the skin that can take an hour to fade. Travel to the shoot in loose clothes with no waistband, no socks, and nothing tighter than it needs to be, and the marks are gone before you arrive.
Fake tan. Not unless the brief asks for it. Self-tan transfers onto swimwear, and the sample is the only one that exists. A stained sample cannot be shot in the next colour until it has been washed, and sometimes not then.
Hair
No cut, no colour, no chemical straightening in the shoot week. The stylist planned around the hair the client saw at casting. Two inches shorter, or a new fringe, changes the look and nobody was asked.
Wash it the night before, not the morning, unless the call sheet says otherwise. Hair that is a day old holds a style. Hair washed at six in the morning has slid out of everything by nine.
No heavy oil the night before either. It reads as unwashed on camera, and it transfers onto the swimwear and the backdrop.
Nails
Hands are in every frame. On a hip, holding a strap, pushing hair back. Feet are in every full-length frame, and a swimwear shoot is mostly full-length frames.
Short, clean, shaped, and either bare or a neutral close to your skin. Chipped polish is the classic retouching job that never needed to exist. A dark colour changes the picture, and unless the brief asked for it, it comes off on set with whatever remover the stylist has to hand, which is never kind to nails.
Feet get forgotten and feet get seen. A pedicure in the week before, heels dealt with, toenails short. Flip-flop tan lines count as tan lines.
The night before
Salt, alcohol and a late night all turn up in the face the next morning, as a puffiness that takes until noon to go. Goa makes this harder than Mumbai does. We are not your parents. We are the people who have to photograph your face at eight in the morning.
Drink water through the day, eat what you normally eat, and go to bed at a time you would be embarrassed to admit to.
Pack the bag that evening, not in the morning. Nude seamless underwear in your own size, a thin robe, flip-flops, a hair tie, your sunscreen, a snack you can eat in two minutes, and water. A deodorant that does not leave white marks, because black swimwear shows them in every underarm frame.
What we changed
We used to send these notes the day before a shoot, on the theory that they would be fresh in the model's mind. They were fresh, and they were useless. Nothing on this list can be done in a day.
Now they go out with the booking confirmation, a week ahead, and the mornings that start with a strap mark and a phone call to the retoucher have almost stopped.
The short version
Seven days out, stop changing anything. Three days out, hair removal and exfoliation. The night before, wash your hair, pack, and sleep. The morning of, loose clothes, no waistband, less moisturiser than you want, and the same tan you had at casting.
Then the only thing left to worry about is the light, and that part is our job.