Welcome Spring: Self-Tan Those Sticky Outy Parts

Canadian spring’s ‘two steps forward, one step back’ rhythm means you may find yourself bundled in a parka while wearing sneakers with exposed ankles. I don’t need the world to see how pale I got over the winter (Narnia’s White Witch pale-verging-on-translucent) so I self-tan, but only the parts that show: forearms and hands and shins to feet. It’s the beauty equivalent of cleaning only the rooms that guests will see.

For this targeted tanning, I use Clarins Radiance Plus Golden Glow Booster self-tan drops, $49, that you mix into your own lotion for a made-to-measure tan of whichever intensity you choose. And it’s not finicky at all. Just add three to six drops onto a squirt of your favorite lotion sitting in the palm of your hand — then rub it into your skin for a natural-looking, buildable tan. (Carefully wash your palms and scrub your cuticles with a nail brush, so you don’t look like a weirdo chain-smoker with brownish fingertips.)

My own proprietary blend is to add the Clarins drops to Caudalie’s new Vinotherapist Hyaluronic Nourishing Body Lotion, Sephora, $42, a star in the ‘body care with skincare ingredients’ firmament. Sure, it contains super-moisturizing shea butter, but also has water-attracting hyaluronic acid to counteract that weird seersucker puckering thing your skin does after menopause. Vinotherapist quickly absorbs into skin so you can get dressed right away, unlike heavy creams that require you to sit around, naked and freezing, while waiting for them to sink in.

The crowning touch is the Vinotherapist signature scent: light, airy and uplifting. You will get a beautiful faux tan and smell expensively French.

Gucci Westman Loves Jergens Natural Glow Self Tanner

The tubes are not chic, you find them at the drugstore or the grocery store, and yet Jergens Natural Glow instant and gradual self tanners are just so good that even celebrity makeup artist Gucci Westman, lover of expensive beauty products and founder of Westman Atelier (my favourite ‘clean beauty’ line, hands down) uses them, as seen in this YouTube screen grab. (Yes, this is the self-same Gucci Westman who did Gwyneth’s wedding makeup, which must be the biggest clean beauty flex of all time.)

Jergens Natural Glow products create a beautiful, authentic-looking tan, come in two strengths (for fair or deeper-toned skin) so you can’t overdo it and the gradual tan lotions are on sale right now at Shoppers Drug Mart, possibly getting cleared off of shelves for winter (which makes no sense, because that’s when we need self-tanner the most.) So I would humbly suggest you go get some immediately.

These Gradual Self-Tanners Will Keep You From Resembling an Oiled Walnut

James Read Express Glow20 and Bondi Sands Everyday Gradual Tanning Milk give you a subtle summery glow.

In the wrong hands, a too-dark self-tan can make you look like a reality show contestant who gets kicked off the very first week. And when you’re over 50, that same faux tan might leave you resembling Magda from There’s Something About May.

Her tan may have been over the top, but Magda’s earrings and shimmery aqua eye shadow were brilliant.

This duo, above, of James Read Express Glow20 and Bondi Sands Every Day Gradual Tanning Milk will keep you looking natural while delivering a warm, subtle and believable faux tan.

James Read Express Glow20 ($44) is a hydrating tanning serum that you massage in like skincare and then rinse off in either 20, 60 or 90 minutes, depending on how deep a colour you want. It even contains skincare ingredients: skin plumping hyaluronic acid, antioxidant vitamin E, and vitamin C for brightening. So, unlike time spent in the sun, with Express Glow20, you’re actually repairing skin while getting (fake) darker.

Bondi Sands Everyday Gradual Tanning Milk, ($27.99, Shoppers Drug Mart) smells quietly beachy with a subtle cocoa butter scent, while the pump dispenser makes it easy to us when you emerge from the shower. I’m pretty slapdash with application but it’s impossible to mess this up. (I used this tanning milk as my body lotion all through last winter into spring to take the edge off my ghostliness.) Colour appears slowly as a glow which then deepens with repeated daily applications. So you will never look Oompa Loompa or Magda orange again.

Now go forth and spend as much time outside this summer as humanly possible. This year more than ever, I do not want to spend any more time indoors than absolutely necessary.

James Read Self-Tanners for the Risk-Averse

I have to trick myself into using self-tanner. It’s a brilliant concept but the reality can be messy and fraught with all sorts of dangers. And as my clever friend and colleague Janine Falcon observes, it is all too easy to make your skin look like faux wood grain if you’re not careful. To mitigate this, London-based, tanner-to-the-stars James Read’s products are virtually idiot-proof (and I say this as a card-carrying idiot,) all in glamorous, faintly 1950s seaside hotel, retro packaging.

Just like the name says, with Click & Glow Tan Drops, you dispense a couple of drops into moisturizer or serum in the palm of your hand and smooth over your face. It’s gradual and you can ‘titrate’ the amount used (my favourite medical term meaning ‘continuously measure and readjust the balance’) incrementally increasing the amount added until you reach the desired shade of ‘glowy, but not resembling a glass of Tang. With apologies to Shakespeare, remember that “restraint is the better part of self-tanning”. Less is definitely more.

Gratifyingly, for a tanning brand owner, Read encourages a light hand to prevent one from looking overtly ‘tanned’. In fact, a single application of the Gradual Tan Sleep Mask Tan Face in Light/Medium, applied before bed, results in faint but believable colour. It’s more of a subtle enlivening with no overt tint, so if you have alabaster skin (the kind that can actually look blue) this is a great one to try. You can happily stop at ‘barely detectable glow’, or repeat nightly until you reach your desired shade.

One final, sterling bit of advice: beauty writer and Guardian columnist Sali Hughes recommends using self tanner at bedtime after a night of excessive imbibing. Naturally, you’ll wake up the next morning feeling like hell, but the (faux) healthy glow will minimize the visible signs of devastation. To me, this defines useful beauty journalism.

Remedial Winter Self-Tanning

Self tanner can be a bad boyfriend: promising true love, but delivering only misery and patchy, orange colour. (OK, so maybe this metaphor doesn’t work.) By this point in the calendar I’ve had a few months of standing for hours in blazingly hot showers while turning my skin lizardy, ashy and dry.

What to do? Scrubs made of sugar or salt granules suspended in oil scare me. If anyone is going to slip, fall and die in the shower it’s yours truly.

So instead, I rip through most of a tube of Aveeno 60 Second In-Shower Facial, covering my whole body with something meant to be applied sparingly to faces. I feel very Marie Antoinette extravagant as its glycolic acid formula smooths away all the roughness on my ‘gator-like exterior.

Then the right self-tanner, discovered through much trial, streaked heels and Cheeto-orange error.

Avène Moisturizing Self Tanner Face & Body’s light gel cream spreads easily over arms and legs (with no tell-tale dark patches or streaks) for natural-looking colour. My torso stays pale and hidden under clothing at all times, so only the sticky-outy bits need doing. (Picture a turtle’s limbs emerging from his shell. That’s me. I am the turtle in this scenario.)

And for my face, Sisley Self-Tanning Hydrating Facial Skin Care smells ‘heavenly-slash-expensive’ (spoiler: it is) but the result is a hydrated ‘day on a Mediterranean chaise longue’ glow. (You know it’s chaise longue, not chaise *lounge*, right? Just wanted to clear that up.)

Once you’re over the shock of having spent a lot on Sisley, you’ll see that it’s worth it, as you’ll look naturally tan and never like someone heading into their fourth season on a Bravo housewives franchise.

A final note: please do not accessorize your tan with a French pedicure. Thank you. 

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Don’t Fear the Mirror this Winter

I am in awe of Jennifer Lopez’s steadfast refusal to age and I would like the phone number of the demon who gave her eternal youth. But that doesn’t mean I should attempt to self-tan my way to her level of tawniness. The JLo glow would look very mutton-bronzed-as-lamb on me.

I just need to look marginally less cadaverous as I head into the full-on greenish-white pallor that defines me from November to May. And as fun as it is to scare small children on the subway — “Look, mummy. That lady is dead!” — I don’t want to frighten myself when I stare glumly into the mirror every morning.

So I offer my profound thanks for Charlotte Tilbury’s Overnight Bronze & Glow Mask, a gradual self-tanner slash moisturizing sleep mask. Sleep masks usually leave me cold, but skin plumping *and* tanning is a worthwhile twofer and Tilbury’s version is great (streak free gradual tanning with a heavy dose of overnight plumping, so you wake up less winter-wizened.) All without the usual (unnecessary) strong sleep mask fragrance that dissuades me from using them.

Two nights in a row and then every third night for colour maintenance. Face, neck and for god’s sake don’t forget your ears. Mirrors will soon lose their power over you.