Care . . . Sunless Tanners

First off, everyone please do NOT forget that today is April Fool's Day. My boss just pulled us all into his office, told us the CFO was in a panic and needed a massive report by Monday. Three of us had a heart attack and one of us was nearly in tears by the time we put two and two together. 

Last year, I wasn't working on April Fools, and I had been asking Hubby for a dog for a couple of years. So I gave him a call and told him a pretty convincing story of the mutt I had found while walking down by the wharf who didn't have a tag so I brought him home and he seems pretty clean except for the first few mud prints he left on the carpet . . . He was mid-way through yelling "Do NOT let it PEE!" when he realized there's no way this was possible - he would kill me and I knew it. Those three seconds of panic were so worth it though. And now, one short year later, we have Little Dog - who did pee in our house last night. And Hubby didn't like it any more in the reality than he did in the hypothetical April Fools joke. Hmm. Good thing Little Dog has a face like this: 

Because he's a little shit. 

ANYWAY - back to beauty. Since it's about that time of year when you start pulling out your tank tops and skirts, only to realize your skin hasn't seen the light of day in 6 months and is in no shape to be bared . . . let's talk sunless tanners! I was the Matron of Honor (ew, I hate the word matron- really? Matron?) in an April wedding last year so I went through a phase of testing every sunless tanner known to womankind in an effort to look presentable (meaning not sickly or streaky) at the wedding.  Here's a quick review of what I liked best: 

- For face, I love Jergen's Natural Glow Face with SPF 20 ($8). I recently got a reader email about this so I hope this helps answer your question RP! I love this one because the smell is barable, and the fact that it has SPF is a bonus. When you have combination skin like mine, the fewer poducts you put on your face, the better, so I skip the moisturizer and the SPF when I use this instead. I also feel the color I get from this is really natural looking. For those of you who want more dramatic results, you might want to try buying a shade up in this product - so try medium/dark, even if you have light skin. That worked well when I need more color from it. 

- I also love the Jergen's Natural Glow for body ($8). It just goes one easily and the color is the most natural and streak-free I've found. The one downside is that especially at first, you really need to use this every day and you really need to put it everywhere. Depending on whether or not you full-body moisturize already, this can add a full 5 minutes to your morning routine and gets old fast. 

- For those of us with little time or patience, I recommend Clarin's Get Glowing Self-Tanning products.  Nordie's has a nice little set for $32 right now. This stuff is great for a quick result - by using it every other day for a week I was able to get the color I wanted and then I used the Jergen's every week or so after that to maintain it and get the most bang for my buck. The one annoying thing about this one is that because it works faster and has more color to it, it's much more important that you fully exfoliate beforehand to get even color and avoid orange knees/elbows. So it takes longer upfront, but you get more immediate results. 

In other news - Lindsay Lohan's sunless tanner just launched at Sephora. I have yet to try it - mainly because of the ridiculous photo being used to promote it: 

See what I mean? Ridiculous. Put some clothes on and LAY OFF THE SELF TANNER (ironically) . . . But if you're a LiLo fan, by all means, try her Sevin Nyne line and let me know what you think.