Everyone feels better with a tan.
One of my favourite cures to boredom, after I’ve exhausted scrolling through Instagram, is to look through old holiday snaps on my phone. I’m a bit of a nostalgic gal; I love remembering toes in the pool and laying around in the sun all day, getting the perfect tan. Do you ever look at beach pic from a really hot holiday and you can feel the sun kissing your skin?
During the first lockdown, I was taking such a trip down memory lane to lift my quarantine-blues. As you can imagine, with the reality of going on holiday in 2020 being as likely as Britney Spears seeing the cover I put on YouTube of me singing “Toxic” and inviting me on tour, this actually had the opposite affect. If anything, it just made me feel pale…
So I decided to do something about it.
Normally, I’d get a Sienna X spray tan at Hampson Beauty Clinic, but with it being the first lockdown that, like all beauty places, was closed. I decided, on my next trip to the shop for “essential supplies”, I was going to find my new tan in the cosmetics aisle.
I have used a gradual tanning lotion before (which was essentially a moisturiser) with mixed results but nothing more extreme than that.
Scanning the beauty aisles of Sainsbury’s, my eyes were drawn to what the bottle professed to be a “luxurious” bottle of tanning lotion…for less than £4.
I thought nothing of it and mumma loves a bargain.
Every night after my shower I lathered it on like I would with any normal moisturiser – dry skin BE GONE! Tanned city here I come!
After about 3 days, I noticed that the skin in-between my fingers was about 20 shades darker than my actual skin colour. Hmmm. I thought nothing of it at first, just “ah this is annoying”
But then it just got darker and darker.
I then finally gave in and read the bottle which said: ‘after use, wash your hands thoroughly’.
The next evening in the bath, I used my nail scrubbing brush to solve my problem. Did it work? no. I was reminded of when I drew a Harry Potter scar on my brother’s head in a permanent marker when I was 6. No matter how hard I scrubbed it wouldn’t shift.
Finally, I decided to discontinue my relationship with the discount lotion, it was patchy all over and my tan had less consistency than Donald Trump’s. It probably should have been applied with a luxury tanning mitt! Not by my bare hands.
TWO AND A HALF WEEKS WENT BY…
The tan had got even darker and, in explicably, patchier. By this time, lockdown had lifted and I went to visit my mum down in Devon.
When Mum opened the door and laid eyes on me, I could tell she was horrified by what she saw but, bless her, she didn’t say anything. Later that night, I treated myself to a hot bubble bath on my arrival.
I got out and was getting dressed in another room, my mum went in to the bathroom. She ran out to find me shouting ‘My bath is ruined!’
And I realised that my tan had emigrated from my skin to the porcelain on my mums bath.
Two bottles of bleach later… my tan was the sewers problem.
The moral of the story is:
If you can’t get a tan from the sun, leave it to the professionals.
Book your Sienna X spray tan, online today.
