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If you looked up sizzling human turkey in the dictionary, you would have found me there.
Patrick Demarchelier. Vogue, April 2013
As I showered, the skin on my chest came off clean in my hands.
In 2019,I wrote a piecefor BritishVogueabout my first experience as a Black woman getting a sunless tan.
The results were extraordinary: golden, deliciously even and confidence-boosting.
This, I told myself at the time, was the start of a lifelong affair with spray tanning.
I was wrongI havent done it since.
Another element of self-tanning that’s exiting is the old skin-drying formulas.
James Read, one of the tanning industrys stalwarts, has recently launched his newest brand,Self Glow.
However, formulations, says Read, are not the only thing that needs a rethink.
If it was down to him, we would no longer use the word tan.
Alyson Hogg, founder of Vita Liberata, agrees the distinction is key.
There is a common misconception that tanning only exists to make skin tanned, but this is not true.
Self-tanning can also be used to even out skin tone and hyperpigmentation.
It also creates a base glow that makes the contrasts on the skin less noticeable.
In search of said glow, I contemplated the new guard of products from all the aforementioned brands.
There were creams, oils, waters, mitts, serums… Oh, the possibilities!
Despite my daily exfoliation, my skin resembled a grainy 20s silent movie in desperate need of Technicolor.
Oils are my go-to as they absorb easily and leave a shine.
However, pay attention to the instructions.
I topped up the oil with concentrated drops, which you were supposed to mix with moisturizer beforehand.
My skin was already moisturised so I thought, Ah, its fine!
Five days later, my palms still look like the love child of an aged orange and jaundice.
