1st time self tanner. Eek!

Hello!

My first post today is all about the wonderful world of self tanning. Now I have had a spray tan before and I have used the moisturisers with the gradual tan, but I have never been brave enough to try actual, one application fake tan. But, we were out on Saturday night and I had purchased a new dress for the occasion that had a base colour of white, argh! Not a good look with my pasty, knobbly knees! I couldn't be bothered with the faff of a spray tan and as much as I like the gradual tanners, they always leave me smelling of biscuits (does anyone else thinks that fake tan smells like that?) and they also leave my skin quite sticky.

So, I took a trip to trusty old Boots to see if they could sort me out with a fake tan that wouldn't make me a streaky, orange mess!  I spent a very long time perusing the aisle trying to work out if I could justify the price of the St Tropez express tan, £25 seriously?!! But as I don't often wear tan I couldn't. Instead I picked up the Soltan Beautiful Bronze self-tan gel which claims to give you instantly luminous skin that develops into a natural looking colour in 2-3 hours. 

I felt that this was the perfect option for me as I wanted something that I could apply on the day of the party rather than the night before. There weren't a huge amount of instructions on the tan which stressed me out a little but I prepared my skin as you would for a spray tan- with a shower and a good old exfoliant (I used my Clarins exfoliating body scrub on dry skin which worked wonders! Amazing stuff!) 

I then used a tanning mitt to apply the gel all over (had to get Tom to do my back!) now I'm not sure that my skin became instantly luminous, it did have a subtle glow but I still felt a bit pasty. I began to notice the tan developing after an hour or so but I think it took longer than the 3 hours to develop into the tan that it claims. 

Here is a picture of me at the party. I'm quite pleased with the tan here as I think I  have a nice glow without looking too obviously tanned (this is about 3 hours after application).

I have woken up this morning with a slightly deeper tan and I'm really pleasd with it. I don't smell of biscuits, my skin didn't feel sticky at any point and I could put my dress on as soon as the tan had dried. I would recommend this product to  first time tan users and anyone that wants a tan that doesn't involve too much stress. Plus, at £8.99 I don't really think you can go wrong. All I would say is if you want the full effect of this product, apply it at least 5 hours before. 

Thanks for reading 

Becky xx