Sweet Brown: How To Get The Perfect Fake Tan. Every. Time.

Let me start out by saying this is a process; a commitment to being bronzed (not that paleness is bad!) that cannot be half-assed. If you are someone who is committed to staying sun-safe, but has a hard time living life in the pale-lane, than follow these steps to the perfect sunless tan. This method is tried and true by yours truly and friends and family can confirm that that tan looks real and in no way freakishly orange.

Ingredients For The Perfect Tan:

Tanning Mousse

Tanning Mitt

Rubber/Nitrile Gloves (in a size that fits your hand snugly!)

Exfoliating (Hammam) Mitt

Thick Moisturizer

A Cool, Dry Room To Apply Your Tan

ITEM 1

Long Live The Mousse:

I can honestly say that the only way to fake-tan is with a sunless tanning mousse. I have tried the gradual lotions, I have tried the funky brown lotions with a color-guide, I've done the sprays. The Mousse is top-dog for two reasons: 1.) It dries very quickly which keeps you from getting hot which can lead to tan-ruining sweat, and 2.) It allows you to use the ultimate tanning applicator: THE MITT (which I'll get to later). There are many mousses that I like, but I'll give you my absolute favorites:

St. Tropez Bronzing Mousse $42

Vita Liberata pHenomenal 2-3 Week Tan Mousse $54

St. Moritz Instant Self Tanning Mousse $5

ITEM 2

The Mitt:

I used to think the tanning mitt was a waste of money. What better applicator than my gloved hands, right? WRONG. I pray at the alter of the tanning mitt and I will never turn back. It makes your applications totally flawless; it totally gets rid of any streakiness that can be cause by using your hands. Now, that doesn't mean you don't wear gloves because the tanner can soak through the mitt and deposit unwanted color on your fingers. Another mitt I recommend the committed tanner purchase is an exfoliating mitt or hammam glove. These gloves are used in Turkish spas by big burly dudes to scrub all you dead (and living) skin off your body leaving you dead-skin free! These are a little more economical than body scrubs which literally get washed down the drain when you're done with them. With the hammam glove, you get the same exfoliation or better without buying more body scrubs!

St. Moritz Tanning Mitt $5

Hammam Glove $20

THE PROCESS

Exfoliate and Shave:

Always exfoliate before you shave. It bristles up any hairs that may be a tad ingrown and makes for a smoother shave. Focus on feet, knees, and elbows which are notorious for being dry, but scrub the rest of your body too! After you exfoliate, shave any bits you want to shave and then give yourself a wash with some body wash in-case you use an oily shaving cream. You want your body devoid of excess moisture which can cause an uneven tan.

Dry Off and Moisturize:

Make sure you are completely dry before you moisturize and tan. If you need to leave your humid bathroom environment, DO IT. Once you are dry, put a thick, creamy moisturizer on the driest parts of your body that could possibly hold more tanner than necessary: toes/feet, ankles, knees, elbows, knuckles, the big five!

Glove-Up:

Always wear gloves when applying tanner or else your hands will look like you've colored them in with a brown Sharpie. I wear nitrile (non latex) disposable gloves from work in the appropriate size (small). Big, floppy gloves will only result in a very frustrating experience. Put your tanning mitt over your gloved hand and start with two pumps of your tanning mousse of choice. 

Tan Time:

Start at the feet and blend your tanner everywhere it needs to go. Work your way up the leg and so-forth. Once you get to the point where you need to tan your back, flip the applicator side of your mitt so that it sits on the top of your hand and swipe it across your back like you're trying to get at an itch. Switch the mitt to the other hand and do the same thing to get the places you couldn't get with the other hand. If you have a shoulder injury or can't move your arm that way, get someone to help you!

Post-Tanning:

No physical activity! Any sweat or excess water will jack up all your had work. Your best bet is to tan the night before you want to be bronze and let the tan develop overnight. Tanners will stain light-colored sheets so sleep on a towel or switch to some darker sheets ( I told you it's a process)! When you wake up, you'll be a bronze goddess! Many tanners recommend you shower off any color guides (brown residue) after your tan develops or else you'll get brown stains on your clothes. 

END RESULT: Enjoy Your Tan!

If you want a darker tan, apply more tanner the next morning and avoid any moisure-filled activites. I wasn't kidding when I said it was a process, but this is what I do. If you don't have this much time on your hands, go get a professional spray tan. If you don't have enough time for that, I'm out of ideas. When I explain my process to people, it's almost always overwhelming, but I want to be transparent as to how I achieve the best sunless tan I can get. Once you get the process down, it's not really a big deal and the benefits outweigh the hassle! 

If there are any other questions you may have about my process, leave a question in the comments section and I'll get right on it! I don't think fake tanning is a hassle; if I can still look tan without risking my health, I'm all for it! Forget the hours of sunbathing or money spent at a tanning salon and tan the safe way!

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Fake Bake: My Favorite Sunless Tanners

Fake Bake: My favorite sunless tanners by elbonner featuring dr dennis gross skincare

Benefit bronze makeup / Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare dr dennis gross skincare / Xen Tan sun care, $47 / St Tropez beauty product, $52 / Xen Tan beauty product, $25 / Chocolate Sun Cocoa Glow Sunless Tanning Cream | Spirit Beauty Lounge

I love sunless tanners. All of my friends know that I am the sultan of sunless tans.I have triedsomany that I could have bought a small condo with the money I've spent on the stuff. I am very fair: freckles, blonde hair, blue eyes, visible veins, the works. My skin also likes to turn anything I put on it orange, which is never good, but I've found a few things that don't make me look like burnt macaroni and cheese. 

My favorite "I need to look super dark" product is Xen-Tan's Dark Lotion Absolute Luxe. This stuff has the most DHA of any other lotion assuring you the darkest tan you can get at home. Though I was worried I'd look like an offensive vaudeville act after using it, it was surprisingly natural looking. It gave me a tan I could only achieve by not wearing sunscreen ever. The face tanner is the only face tanner I use. It's not greasy and it doesn't look dirty and gross. No Nutella stained face here!

My second favorite is actually a bronzer. When I don't want to tan my face or I use a lighter tanning formula, I forgo any sunless tanner on my face and use Benefit's Hula bronzer. It's matte, it's dark, but not orange. It's a lovely chocolatey brown color that works on almost all skin tones. 

My favorite lighter formula sunless tanner is Chocolate Sun's Cocoa Glow. This stuff smells like cookies and is all natural, great for people with sensitive skin that can't handle things like Xen-Tan. I actually have this stuff on right now and it's not greasy and soaks in really quickly. This comes in three shades, one for everyone!

My favorite bargain sunless tanner is from Australian Gold. It's like $8 and does the job. This one isn't quite as olive-y going one, but the color is decent for the price. It also keeps your skin moisturized which is hard to find in a sunless tanner since they tend to dry you out. 

For exfoliation and tanning in one stop I grab Dr. Dennis Gross's Alpha Beta Glow Pads. They're available for face and body and leave you not only tan. but glowy and soft. It's really the best of both worlds! I use these when I'm feeling lazy and don't want to have to scrub down every inch of my body.

Last, but not least, my favorite mousse formula is from St. Tropez. This is a celebrity favorite because it's fast, natural and almost never streaks. It have an olive-brown color which tells you what you've covered and what you've missed and soaks in immediately so you're not sweating after you've covered yourself in tanner. I find mousse formulas to be best when I'm going to bed and might get hot. The fact that it soaks in quickly makes it harder to rub off on things. In the morning you shower and wash the color guide off and it looks like you've spent a week at the beach!

I've noticed that with sunless tanners, it's really personal preference. I also occasionally use Mystic tan HD when I'm really pressed for time or just don't feel like rubbing in a bunch of lotion. I've also noticed that the more olive-brown the tanner is, the better the outcome. I hope this helps keep you dark and sexy into the fall and winter and more apt to wear sunscreen in the summer. Stay brown!

The Best Under The Sun (According To Me)

Sun Safe Sun care products by elbonner featuring philosophy skincare

As nice as it is to be outside being tickled by warm sunshine,the sun can seriously mess you up. There is a lot of give and take when talking about the sun: it gives us warmth, happiness, an overall sense of "it's so nice out, maybe I won't drive off the bridge on the way to work". The sun can also increase signs of aging, dry out your skin, cause hyper pigmentation, burns and worst of all: the cancer. Being the paleface that I am, I have made it my mission to find the best ways to save my skin from looking like a cheap leather bag. 

I protect my face with Shieseido's Ultimate Sun Protection Cream spf55. It's a mineral sunblock which is good for sensitive skin that is not happy with chemical sunscreens. The Japanese are masters at keeping themselves out of the sun and protecting their skin, so my first choice for outdoor sun protection was a Japanese product. On days where I'm not going to be sweating as much or I'm going to be at work all day I'll use a product like Skinceuticals Sheer Physical UV Defense spf50. It's not waterproof, but it's completely non-greasy and doesn't make you look like corpse. 

For my body I like to use a variety of things, but I have narrowed it down to my two favorites. Sun Bum is a great sun care line, especially their slogan "protect your lazy ass". Their products range from spf 15 to 70 and come in sticks, lotions and sprays. They smell like bananas and coconut, they moisturize, aren't greasy and have the best packaging. I personally love their spf 50 lotion: I can use it at the beach on a 95 degree day and not come home looking like I feel into a vat of ketchup.

Hei Poa is another great body spf brand from France. It's difficult to find in stores in the US, but it's readily available online. I like that a lot of their sunscreens are sprays as I find them much easier to apply and less greasy and they also have spf oils which make you look "eff off Gisele I'm fabulous". They're a Tahitian flavored brand that uses monoi oil (a blend of Tahitian tiare flowers and coconut oil to keep skin moisturized and shriveled like a snake skin). They also smell friggin' amazing.

For lips I like to use a balm, as lip glosses or shiny things can actually reflect the sun and give you a not-so-nice carcinogenic surprise on your mouth (ew!). I love Fresh's Sugar lip treatments, their rose tint and coral are great for the beach since they give you a bit of color and are also spf 15. Sun Bum also makes a great lip balm with an spf of30. Protect your lips because ain't nobody wanna kiss your ashy-ass lips!

I am the queen of sunless tanners. I think they are wonderful and allow me to look just as tan as my friends who lay out for days, but significantly increase my chances of getting carded forever (no lines here bitch). One of my favorites is St. Tropez's sunless tanning mousse. This starts off as a brown/olive color foam and turns your skin about 2-3 shades darker than itis originally so you don't look like a freak. It'snot orange, the smell isn't overpowering and the color guide helps you see what you may have missed. Caution: always used gloves ora tanning mitt when using this or you could end up with beautiful chocolate brown palms that make you look as though you've strangled a Hershey bar. I use this after a deep exfoliation before I go to bed and I wake up with color that would take me weeks to get. 

Your hair can also get ravaged by the sun like a romance novel character so using an after-sun mask isn't a bad idea. This one by Fekkai soothes your hair an scalp and keeps you from getting the vapors (it probably doesn't :( ).

Sun protection doesn't have to end with sunscreens. Topical use of vitamin C has been proven to help reduce sun damage in the form of L-Ascorbic Acid. The problem is, vitamin C in liquid form is very unstable and doesn't last very long, so having a powdered form of vitamin C gives you a better effect. Philosophy has made a powdered version of L-Ascorbic Acid called Turbo Power C-Booster Powder that can be mixed with you daily serum or moisturizer to give you maximum benefits. Vitamin C has been shown to reduce wrinkles, keep skin even , and help prevent dark spot from showing up. Using an antioxidant enriched serum also helps your spf out a little by reducing inflammation caused by sun exposure. 

If you absolutely hate sunscreens over your moisturizer or have really oily skin, there is still hope for you. Peter Thomas Roth makes a powdered mineral sunscreen that can go over your moisturizer/foundation/clown paint or whatever you already have on your face. I don't know if this would be great for dry skin since powders tend to suck up any excess moisture on your face, but oily/sweaty/combination faces could all benefit from an spf powder. Just be aware that this type of spf is for light day wear. If you're going to the beach, find something that is going to stay on like the Shiseido lotion. La Roche Posay makes a line of sun milks, and though I have not had the chance to try them, the amount of rave reviews I've seen speak for themselves.

Sorry for such a long post, but I'm passionate about sunscreen! Nobody wants to look haggard at thirty and everyone I went to high school with who lived in tanning beds at 17 now look closer to 36 than 26. With all the sunless tanning options available today, there's no reason to fry yourself to look like the color of your iced coffee. Protect what you have or have it biopsied off in the future and in the words of Captain Planet "The Power Is Yours!".