Starting summer with Skinny Tan

Just before I headed off to the sunny climes of France earlier this year Skinny Tan offered me the chance to go with a tan. If you remember May was rather wet so I hadn’t as yet managed to build up anything and was rather pale. I don’t actually tend to tan very much anyhow. Despite being dark haired and eyed I always seem to just reflect the sun beams off me so I do tend to try a glow out from a bottle.

Now Skinny Tan (Of Dragons Dens fame) claim that it’s the first natural tanner to also contour your body. Skinny Tan originates from Australia and claims to reduce the appearance of cellulite. 

“Skinny Tan is the first self- tanner that combines a natural tanning active with naturally derived skin smoothing actives to visibly tan, contour and reduce the visible appearance of cellulite!”

Now I don’t have cellulite but I do have stretch marks and scars and I wondered how they’d cope with those.

Skinny tan were kind enough to send me pre-tanner, 7 day tanner and a mitt for the body and one for the face too. The pre-tanner is a natural exfoliator which smooth’s the skin to prepare for a perfect tan. Well as you can see from the photos it’s pretty much like most exfoliators, but smelled gorgeous! Real coconut and heaven scent!

Now to the tan (and the mitts) its colour guided so you know where you’re putting it which is rather good. You don’t also have to use too much. They suggest that the lower half of your leg would be covered by a squirt as big as 50p and 10p for an arm. I tried this out and can only presume I have slightly longer legs as I did need a little more than this, either that or I was a bit too worried I hadn’t covered everywhere. Next up, they promise a streak free finish. I was a bit worried because as you can see from the middle photo as its started to dry it became a bit streaky! I braved it though and didn’t wash it off immediately (they say it needs to be on 5hrs or more) and I went to bed. Lovely to be able to wake up in the morning and find my bed sheets not brown! 

Unlike another well-known tanner you have to leave on that long. Also the biscuit smell was missing. There were still essences of coconut but not as strong so it wasn’t masking any other smells. I washed it off the shower and at first thought I hadn’t made a difference and was also relieved to see the streaks of last night had disappeared too. It genuinely was streak free! The tan which develops isn’t particularly strong; it was gentle and did actually show. They do suggest if you would like a darker tan to reapply again 24hrs later. I did end up doing this but a friend of mine whose blond found that one application was enough. Now down to their 7 day promise…I soak in the bath every night so it lasted 5 days before I needed to reapply. I would imagine that if you didn’t have long soaks every night and just had a quick shower twice a day it would last 7 days. As the tan faded it faded evenly with no patchy bits (maybe down to the pre tanner?) or dark bits. The tan is glowing, even and naturally gorgeous. It’s now replaced my long-time favourite and when it runs out (you do get an awful lot for your money) I’ll swiftly be replacing it! Come and chat to them on twitter! @SkinnyTanHQ