At the ripe old age of 28, this is only the second selftanning product that I've managed to use successfully. The first was a liquid that you applied with cotton wool - it was called Sun2000 but as far as I can tell that was discontinued years ago. It was awesome, because it looked like Vanilla Essence and you could see EXACTLY where you were going/still had to go/had to wipe some off etc.
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| The look I was NOT going for (source) |
Anyhoo, back to the present. This one has a fairly easy to manoeuvre spritzer (except for when my very untalented left hand had to do the spraying), and then you can easily spread/blend it in by hand (I did miss my Vanilla Essence-esque marker at first, 'cos I was nervous and would have liked to see where I was going). When I nervously approached the mirror the on the first 'morning after', I was thrilled to see a very unspectacular result -
this is a good thing. If you're a Twilight shade of pale, you DON'T want a radical result from a home self tan job, trust me. I merrily applied it for three consecutive days, and the end result was a more tanned looking but non-orange, non-streaky, non-blotchy version of myself. I could even use a foundation that has always been to dark for me (I applied the Self Tan on my face too - not too sure if I was supposed to, but it worked very well - just don't spritz directly onto your face. Spritz into your hands, then spread onto your face).
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| St Tropez Naturals Self Tan Milk, R470 on their website. |
The tanning agent in this range is called Vegetan - it's been approved by Ecocert as a natural product. The naturals line is also rich in Avocado and Grapeseed oils, and contains added Mango and Pomegranate extracts. It dried within minutes (as in less than 5), which is rather convenient in winter, and it smells almost nothing like self tan - there's a faint hint of it coming through, but I mostly smelt sugary treats. I imagined very vividly that it's a waffle with syrup that I'm smelling. There's also no need to shower/wash it off after a certain development time - I just left it on inbetween showers.
If you're braver than I am and you're in need of a tanner that packs more punch, check out the rest of the St Tropez range on their website. You can buy products
online or from selected salons and spas.
C xx
PS - It seems that this natural alternative above comes with perfect timing, since the potential health risks of airbrush/spray tanning are being questioned. From what I could gather, DHA, a commonly used tanning ingredient, has been FDA approved for topical application, but not as an all over spray where it is inhaled and possibly also ingested. If you want the find out more on the topic, you can read more and watch a news clip on
ABC.
