Staying out of the sun is apart of essential skin care, but is spray tanning for you? Find out more here.
I am fair-skinned, but do still enjoy having a skin care glow to my skin, so come summertime I do venture out into the sun covered from head-to-toe in sunscreen and eventually, by the end of the season, I do have a golden glow. I generally hate self-tanners, because even the gradual ones make me look like a naartjie and wear off all patchy. I have read loads of how-to guides on the application of self-tan and have done everything by the book, but I guess my skin just hates it.
My BFF is getting married soon and she wanted to try out the spray tan, so convinced me to go as her wing girl. I wasn’t keen on having it done myself, but decided to give it a go.
It was surprisingly difficult to find a beauty salon that actually does the spray tan in PE! A few advertise it, but then don’t offer it because either their spray-gun is broken or they don’t have trained staff, but we did find one eventually!
I found the staff of the beauty salon to be very friendly and not intimidating at all. I emphasised my skin’s carrot-turning tendencies, so they offered me the very natural glow option. The tan is meant to last 7-10 days if you look after it properly. I got invited into a lovely zen-like room and had to strip off all my clothing to replace it with a towel and a very trendy paper g-string… NOT! Those things are hideous! One thing I didn’t like is that you have to shower in the room to exfoliate your body and your face and I just found it to be rather awkward even though I was alone in the room at the time. Loved the scrub they supply you with though! Very scrubby! A barrier cream was applied to my hands and feet and then you get a shower cap to cover your hair. I then had to stand topless in the booth ( I felt very self-conscious) and the beauty therapist then sprayed me all over with the tanning gun, shouting instructions like a sergeant major for me to turn this way and that, until my body was covered in the bronzer, so she could see where the tanning solution had been sprayed. I hated the way my skin flabbed with the force of the spray-gun! Yuck! After that was over, she sprayed me dry with an air-dryer and covered me in powder to prevent me from sweating the tan off. I had also been told upfront to wear old dark clothing to prevent staining, although I was assured that it would wash out if clothing did become marked.
After the procedure was complete, I was given a list of do’s and don’ts, including that I had to wait 8 hours before I showered to give the tan a chance to develop. You can’t swim in chlorinated water, so I had to spend the hottest week in PE at the side of my pool watching my kids and hubby splashing around, while I sweated off my spray tan. You also need to keep your skin very moisturised and are not allowed to use Dove soap as it also eats away the tan.
I found the results for the first three days were wonderful. I really did have a gorgeous, natural glow and drew a few compliments to boot. After the third day it started to slowly wear off and when it wore off, boy did it wear off! I looked like I had a serious case of vitiligo – big patches of white skin everywhere. I did everything they told me to do in the instructions, but it definitely didn’t last the minimum 7 days they promise, more like 5 at a push for me. My BFF is a seasoned self-tan addict and her self-tan always looks natural when it wears off and she had the exact same problem. I spent a lot of time exfoliating to get rid of the remnants of my expensive tan and it was finally gone after about 11 days.
The cost of the tan was R295,00 and I don’t feel that it was worth it. My BFF has decided to use self-tan before her wedding, there is no ways she wants to look like she has a skin care problem on her honeymoon!
Article by: Maryanne Young http://www.beautybulletin.com/blog-directory/our-bloggers/maryanne-young