Fitness Brain-- Lucky you! I look unnatural with sun....lol! I'd end up going as is...perfectly pale!

On a sad not....I just noticed the other day that my freckles are leaving *sigh*:cry: (We need a freckled vanillacon!)

hi
do you get the bad effects of the fumes even if you get sprayed by someone, or just on the booths?
I was considering this one before Hawaii, getting "airbrushed" as they say
but I guess it will be sort of the same, although I did it once and they have a fan running all the time
it's twice as expensive

I like to use Neutrogena's moisturizing self tanner lotion; I've used it for about 4 years. I've tried many different brands and have always liked this one the best, plus it's pretty cheap at about $8 at Target. I buy the medium/dark one and only need one application to get good color. What I do is exfoliate really well with scratchy gloves at night, make sure my skin is really dry (if it's still wet, you'll streak) and then I put it on with gloves all over being careful to work in circular motions and really rub it in. Then I take off the latex gloves and "feather" some lotion on the backs of my hands by putting the lotion on a tissue and applying it. My hands are the only places where the tan ever looks fake. Then I make sure to take tissue and rub my knees, elbows, and knuckles so that I don't get dark orange spots there. I then sleep on an old sheet, wake up the next morning and shower and enjoy my nice glow!

If you prefer to skip all that work, you can get airbrushed at a tanning salon, which should reduce the chances of inhaling the solution. In the Magic Tan booth, you basically get sprayed all over all at once and there's a lot of solution in the air around you. When you do airbrush, it's like being painted, so there should definitely be much less of a chance of inhaling; just don't breathe in when they are doing your face. Plus, the airbrushing is generally done in a bigger, better ventilated area. I work in a tanning salon and we do our airbrushing in our back room which is pretty big. But you should still exfoliate well before going! It's the same chemical that tans you (DHA), just in a slightly different form. Also, be careful where you put your clothes that you wear after you get sprayed. The solution has sugar in it and I've heard multiple stories of people just tossing their clothes on the bathroom floor and then picking them up later to find a bunch of ants underneath! Eww! Then again, I live in a really warm climate right now (it's in the 80s today!) and I suppose the ants are all gone elsewhere.

The only thing I would say about fake tans and the beach is that, in my experience, the sun makes any mistakes show up really well. Also, I always felt like when I was pale, but dark with a fake tan, that the sun just showed my paleness. In other words, I'd be dark inside, but look really pale outside. And I'm not the only one who noticed. A friend of mine asked me why I looked so pale in the sun, yet so tan inside.

I noticed that the St. Tropez's exfoliant had much finer granules than the ones I had purchased in the past to use before I went to the tanning salon to be sprayed by a machine. I think the fine granules type works MUCH better.

Also, I've always understood from those who work at the salon where I was sprayed that you should use moisturizers all over on your skin prior to the process and then continue to moisturize, of course, in the days that follow. With the St. Tropez method, however, they only tell you to apply it to areas where you may pick up too much color such as your elbows, hairline, knees, tops of feet, ankles, and hands. So I'm a bit confused on that point, myself. I'll be curious to read how others respond to that.