A body bronzing treatment at the newly expanded Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon at Saks Fifth Avenue takes about an hour and a half of your day and puts you out $110 (without tip).

But since I refuse to pull on my new H&M halter top without at least some color on my back, I’m hooked.

What are the benefits of having someone else apply your tanner? Better coverage, natch — not to mention less streaking — thanks to the care that specialist and longtime Red Door employee Gina Nicolletti took when bronzing me from head to toe.

First, I stripped down to my birthday suit (which this time of year tends to be a whiter shade of pale than other seasons). Gina then covered the front and back of my bod in gommage exfoliant — that’s exfoliating lotion to you and me.

She then scrubbed me down, sloughing away the dead skin cells that had accumulated under my turtleneck sweaters and woolly tights I wore all winter. I showered the gook off.

Free of scaly build-up, my pasty skin was ready to be bronzed.

The Red Door salon uses a moisturizing self-tanning spray by the French company Phytomer (you get to take home whatever’s left in the bottle). Gina sprayed me down and, with plastic gloves on, rubbed the mist into my skin, careful to give me an even application.

I waited two minutes for the stuff to dry, and I was out of there.

I went in to be bronzed at 10:30 on Thursday morning. By 3 that afternoon, co-workers’ compliments started rolling in.

“Wow. Your tan is great!” “Wait: When did you go on vacation?” And “I hope you didn’t do that in a tanning bed.”

My answers: Thanks, I haven’t, and of course not!

Why risk permanent skin damage in one of those spooky “sun” coffins when a fake tan looks so real?

Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon at Saks Fifth Avenue. Open Mon.- Wed. and Fri. from 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Thurs. 8:30-8; Sat. 8:30-6:30; and Sun. 12-6. Call (212) 940-4000 to schedule an appointment.