Supermodel and businesswoman Elle Macpherson, with her lanky, bronzed limbs and sun-streaked hair, has proved she’s still the sun goddess.

Macpherson, 44, has signed a long-term deal with the company and shoot a TV commercial and print campaign. Andrea Horwood-Bux, founder of Invisible Zinc, stated that the choice of Macpherson as the new face for the US launch came about since she’s an Australian icon and well known in America.

Reports said that Macpherson will regularly represent the brand on a home-shopping cable channel when Invisible Zinc is launched in May.

But the Sydney-born model, now living in London, also got into a controversy with cancer authorities for her statement, “I don’t have the skin of an English rose but I know my skin and I tan safely.”

The Cancer Institute of NSW, which is running a $2.16 million summer advertisement campaign with the message that “tanning is skin cells in trauma, trying to protect themselves from cancer” slammed Macpherson for this statement with the remark: “Elle Macpherson might be a great model but she’s hardly a dermatologist or cancer expert. There is no such thing as a safe tan.”

But Mrs Horwood was quick to comment that the supermodel’s statement had been misinterpreted.

“What she means by that is she can go outside safely because she uses the zinc,” she said, while adding that she knows there is no such thing as a safe tan and that “the only safe tan is a fake tan.”