Fake tanning, the great debate.
Spot the tanner: Kate and Marleena.
Kate: "Arguments in Support of the Ghostie."
Recently I went to buy a foundation and caused uproar in John Lewis. No counter in the store had a foundation pale enough for me. The assistant at Clinique saw me and exclaimed: “Good god, you are pale!”
Usually, this would send me running back to the tanning bottle; being ginger and very fair skinned, it’s the closest I can get to tanning naturally, other than building an impenetrable layer of freckles. Fake tanning, however, involves extreme effort - so much can go wrong.
If you don’t tan naturally, and don’t spend a lot of money, it will probably look fake. On so many occasions, I have looked back at photos of myself and realised my hair is the same colour as my skin.
Also if you don’t spend a lot of money and time on tanning you will go streaky. In order to get an even tan one must exfoliate, moisturise dry spots, use a tanning mitt and buy St Tropez. I don’t have the hours or energy for such activity.
After all the application activity is over, good fake tans usually take six hours to develop before you can wash off the excess. In these hours one goes major orange and thus can’t leave the house. I would prefer to leave the house.
Even if your tan is successful, after its prime it will start to go mottled and vile. Even the super expensive, perfectly even, gorgeous, professional St Tropez spray tan I got for my sixth form prom faded in to a patchy skin disease mess after four days- and yes, I did exfoliate. Imagine experiencing the patchy skin four days into a beach holiday- not a good look!
I’ll be honest, when summer comes around, its highly likely I’ll be whipping the tan out again, but until I have to get my legs out, I think I’ll leave it. Even if in the winter months my skin becomes so pale it’s translucent, I’d prefer to be out partying, drinking from bottles for six hours at night than in my house tanning from them.
Marleena: "Fake Tanning is my Religion."
St Tropez, Piz Buin, Fake Bake, Garnier Soleil, and not forgetting Tesco Own Brand Tan, are all dear friends of mine. Having sampled each variety of orange stuff, it’s safe to say I’m a wee bit addicted.
My hundred ‘carrot’ gold tan makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like my skin’s been on holiday even in the minus two degrees, arctic, English temperatures. A healthy glow can make you look skinnier and healthier and just generally better.
Im no UV junkie, faking it gives me the optimum glow ‘fo sho’: the soggy brown applicator mitt confusing my boyfriend when it is left in the bathroom. He also comments on a certain lingering biscuit smell in the home….I plead guilty, and tanned.
My addiction may have massacred all of my white underwear, towels and a cream rug in its messy path of destruction, but our relationship still remains strong.
Sure, some actively enjoy to work the pale and interesting look, but for me it only comes in one successful form, that of Edward Cullen, and not my complexion.
Written by Marleena and Kate Lloyd.
