Fake a Tan Year-Round

By Laura C. Miller

From our provider:

Rate This Article

0 Comments

Back in 1923, French style icon Coco Chanel developed tanned skin while cruising from Paris to Cannes. She later admitted she simply had stayed in the sun too long; a disclaimer so to speak, but it failed to keep the look of tanned skin from catching on like wildfire. And it's one fashion that never seems to go out of style. These days, a golden tan is available without the potentially harmful rays of the sun. Here are a few safe ways to maintain a tan year round, no matter where you live or what the weather!

Multitask with moisture and color combined
Self-tanning products come in various formulas, including lotions, sprays and creams. While offering great color, they can also make skin dry, so many companies have developed moisturizers with self-tanner in the formula.

Hawaiian Tropic Island Glow Daily Moisturizer has a green tea fragrance, and with daily use gives you a believable tan in one week. Jergens Natural Glow Daily Moisturizer won an Allure magazine Best of Beauty Award for their gradual self-tanner, and Dove Energy Glow Daily Moisturizer has earned raves for their subtle self-tanner. (Clearly, "glow" is the beauty buzzword of the tanning world.)

Even lingerie superstars Victoria's Secret boasts its own brand of glowing glory, called Bare Bronze. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen uses this product line - which includes goodies like a pre-glow body scrub, shimmering body oil, sheer self-tan mousse, leg perfecting spray tint and an illuminating face tint - and I have had great results with the product myself.

Aveeno Active Naturals Continuous Radiance Moisturizing Lotion Get a custom tan
Knowing that one-tan-doesn't-fit-all, most companies offer several skin tones choices for their products so you don't end up looking like you never used anything or like you are from planet Tan-o-rama. Aveeno has taken this one step further with a genius new product called Active Naturals Continuous Radiance Moisturizing Lotion for All Skin Tones. This magical bottle has a patented dial design that allows you to customize the color with five different settings from light to dark. Brilliant! Perhaps in December you don't want to look quite as tan as you might want to in June, and now one bottle can make all your wishes come true.

The scent of sunless
As with many things in life, self tanners have a dark side - and I'm not talking about the tropical looking tan you get without the long flight and the mosquito netting over your bed. I am talking about the smell, people - the smell! Anyone who has ever used a self tanning product knows that when Dihydroxyacetone (DHA), the active ingredient in self tanners, reacts with the outermost layer of your skin (dead skin cells, aka the stratum corneum), you get that funky smell going! It's been likened to body odor and the scent bergamot, but any way you slice it, most folks find it not so pleasant.

One way to deal with this is by applying your moisturizing self tanner before bed and washing it off in the morning shower. Companies can make all sorts of claims about how their product smells heavenly…and well, it might while still in the bottle. But if you don't detect "that smell" after you slather it on, it may not be working.

Neutrogena MicroMist Tanning Sunless Tanning Spray Spray your pastiness away
Spray on self-tanners are great for your back and other hard to reach places on your body. Neutrogena makes MicroMist Tanning Sunless Tanning Spray, available in Medium and Deep tones. The can sprays upside down and every which way, making it easy to get your glow on - airbrush-style. For those of you with a bigger budget, the Fusion Beauty GlowFusion Airglow gun might be more your speed. If you'd rather spray your tan on at home as opposed to going out to a booth to get a Mystic Tan, you could probably justify the $175 for the Airglow gun by applying the cost per use formula. How? Get out your calculator and figure cost of the product (don't forget $62 a piece for refill cartridges of tanning solution) with how many times you'll use it. If you keep a fake tan every month of the year, you are probably a candidate for the Bentley of spray tanners. I report, you decide.

It's a good idea to do your spray tanning enclosed in the shower, as the mist can shoot out all over the place and may damage fabrics. (Don't say I didn't warn you.) This is especially true if you have one of those posh all-white bathrooms like you may find in a South Beach hotel.