Gradual Tan Review: Garnier Body, Summer-body Moisturising Lotion Sun-Kissed Look (Deep).

According to Garnier what this product claims to do:

Garnier Summer Body Sun Kissed look Moisturiser is a 2 in 1 gradual tanning moisturiser giving you that gorgeous sun-kissed glow day after day! Enriched with Camomile, this long lasting moisturiser lasts for an impressive 12 hours, and contains only a small amount of tanning agents so each day your tan develops darker, resulting in natural, streak-free results!

 In one step, Summer Body moisturising lotion moisturises your skin from morning until evening whilst gradually building a natural looking tan in harmony with your skin tone.

·         Non greasy, light moisturiser with a hint of self tan

·         Builds a sun-kissed glowing tan to suit your skin tone

·         Camomile and apricot extract to leave skin soft and supple

 

Personally I prefer how I look with a bit of a tan and seeing as my pale Irish skin is never going to tan naturally I turn to the bottle of the fake stuff for a bit of help. I will openly admit that I have always had a love/hate relationship with fake tan- I love the colour pay off, hate the effort of keeping my tan looking good. As I am maturing [24 this year...eek] I have noticed from looking at old pictures and talking with my mum that I look better with a more subtle tan as opposed to full on dark tan, hence my search for a product that would leave me looking lightly bronzed with minimal effort. I also wanted a fake tanning product that would leave my skin looking and feeling moisturised as I found that many fake tans were very drying on my skin [yes I’m looking at you st.moriz]. From discussing fake tans and my problems with them one day in work I was kindly introduced to Garnier’s Summer Body Gradual Tan by a work colleague and at £2.89 in Savers for 400ml of product I thought to myself ‘why not.’

Basically Garnier Summer-body Moisturising Lotion Sun-Kissed Look is a moisturiser with a hint of self than that can be built up gradually. I use the shade "Deep Sun-kissed Look" which is the darkest. There is also a fairer option which I haven’t tried but may purchase to use for those times where I want to maintain the tan I have achieved without going much darker.

Scent:

In my opinion it smells lovely. It has a strong fruity scent of apricots which actually reminds me of Much Bunch apricot yoghurts-yummy!!! The scent of apricots does linger on the skin whilst developing but once washed off in the shower/bath the scent disappears. I actually apply this at night so it doesn’t really matter to me and I actually like this scent but for those who don’t like the scent of apricots then this product may be a no-go for you. The great thing about this gradual tanner is that there is no hint of the biscuity fake tan smell at all, which is great. Prior to using this tan a work colleague used this tan religiously and I never once smelt the tell tale ‘fake tan’ smell off her. She even commented that her partner loved the smell as it was developing. So this is also great for those with partners who detest the smell of regular fake tanning products.

 

Application and Upkeep:

This tan comes out as a white moisturiser, so unlike regular fake tan with a colour guide it can be hard to see where you have applied product and you don't know which bits you've missed until the colour has developed. However I recommend using a tanning mitt until you get used to using this product, also a bonus to having no colour guide is that your sheets and PJ’s won’t get stained-hooray!!!

Overall I found this easy to use. You use it just as you would with a normal body moisturiser, just be sure to wash your hands afterwards if you’re not using a glove/mitt. I personally like to use disposable gloves to protect my hands and apply it all over like any other moisturiser, in circular motions starting from my feet upwards. I then quickly give a rub down to my body with a mitt which takes off any excess lotion and ensures an even finish [good way of avoiding streaks]. For my back I normally get a housemate to apply the lotion however I have recently purchased Velvotan’s self tan back applicator which allows me to apply the gradual tanner to my back evenly myself.

I always apply some regular moisturiser to my elbows, armpits, knees and feet to ensure that these areas don’t over absorb the product as no one likes extra tanned knees, elbows etc. For my hands and feet I dilute the gradual tanner with regular moisturiser with a 40/60 ratio. So 40% gradual tanner, 60% regular moisturiser. This makes my tan look more natural looking and ‘sun kissed.’

If using this product on your face I would suggest applying regular moisturiser to your hair line, eyebrows, sides of nose and your top lip to ensure that you don’t get product over-load on these areas as no-one wants a fake tan moustache!!! I have used this product on my face but prefer to use my He-shi face and body gel on my face and neck as I find my face is harder to tan than the rest of my body and doesn’t seem to take this gradual tanners as well as other parts of my body [may just be me and my skin type].

I found that this sunk into my skin fairly quickly [way more quickly than Dove or St.Tropez gradual tanners], leaving my skin feeling a little tacky for approx 5 mins. I found that I could get dressed fairly quickly which is great when you don’t want to be hanging around naked for ages especially when it’s cold and your tired.

I’m really bad at remembering to moisturise so this product is great for keeping my skin soft. I have never had the scaly skin effect with this tan and find that it comes off easy when using baby oil and exfoliating gloves in the bath/shower. I use this tan approx twice a week and would only exfoliate my skin once a week. If I can remember I try to moisturise my skin once a day, however sometimes I skip this stage due to laziness and it hasn’t appeared to have affected the look of this tan which is great.  

Results:

The next day there was a definite noticeable colour change, I was a nice light/medium tanned colour which looked very natural [others around me commented saying that it looked natural]. However for those wanting a fair tan you may be better suited to the lighter formula.

For me this tan was dark enough after one application, but for those who preferred the more tanned look you could apply it again the next day. I sometimes like my legs a little darker so would sometimes tan my legs two nights in a row which gives off a lovely natural colour. I personally top this tan up every 3-4 days and more regularly if I have a special occasion coming up. My work colleague used this tan every second night which gave a lovely bronzed look and didn’t look too fake or over applied. So I would say that this tan is buildable. However I feel if you’re using this product every day to achieve your desired tan you may be better suited to using a regular fake tan i.e weekly and topping it up in-between with this to achieve a more natural colour.

Overall:

Overall all rate this product. I love the colour it gives me, the ease of use, that its low maintance, the fact that I can tailor the amount of colour I want, I love that I can see how much product is left in the bottle, I love the smell of the product whilst developing and that I don’t smell of fake tan, I love that there is no trace of this product smell wise on my skin after showering, I love that my skin is left feeling super soft for ages after using the product and finally I love that this product is readily available to me and is supper affordable.

**I have also tried Dove, Palmers, He-Shi and St.Tropez gradual tanners’ prior to trying this product. I disliked the He-Shi and St.Tropez gradual tanners as I wasn’t very impressed with the colour payoff especially when you consider their price. I couldn’t stand the smell of Palmers gradual tanner and actually really liked Doves gradual tanner; it comes a close second to Garnier’s gradual tan, loosing points for its tackiness on the body.**

Where you can buy the product and current offers:

250ml bottle:

Tesco for £1.90 which normally retails at £3.80, [buy here].

Just for fragrances for £2.55 with free shipping, [buy here].

Boots for £5.10 which is their normal retail price, [buy here].

400ml bottle:

Tesco’s for £2.50 which normally retails at £5, [buy here].

Savers for £2.89.

Superdrug for £3.55, which normally retails at £7.10, [buy here].

Semichem for £3.99, [buy here].

Boots for £7.15, [buy here].

Thanks for reading!!!

xKx

A Further fake tan update, He-Shi Face and Body Gel.

In my first blog post linked here [Click] I mentioned that I would review one of my recent purchases; He-Shi Face and Body Gel which I purchased from www.feelunique.com for £14.90. Below are some pictures of this product:

I have been a long time fan of He-Shi Express Liquid Tan [see picture below] and thought that I would give their gel formula a go as it would be more moisturising on my skin. I exfoliated prior to application and applied oil free moisturiser to my hands, elbows, hairline, knees and feet beforehand. I used my tanning mitt to apply the gel. The gel looks very dark when squeezed out of the bottle [don’t let this alarm you] it does however come out quite light on the skin when rubbed in given the darkness of the actual product. The guide colour is handy to show you any spots you have missed but isn’t too dark that it would drastically stain your sheets [or onsie in my case].

The next day I discovered that the gel had clung to all my extra moisturised areas as mentioned above and had clung to any dry patches on my skin making them appear more noticeable, as a result my hands, feet, elbows etc were darker than the rest of me and my legs were also streaky. I have been applying fake tan products for years and have not had streaky legs since my early teens. I was shocked to discover that I had big missing patches on my legs the next day. In hindsight I would say that my legs streaked because it takes this tan a long time to dry given that it is a gel and perhaps I had not waited long enough before hoping into bed. Re the darker patches of skin and hands, feet etc, I do not know what else I could have done to avoid this situation as I’m not sure how a lotion would mix with the gel in order to dilute the tan for these areas, perhaps I should try this next time? Or maybe use a moisturiser with oil in it for these parts?  

One plus to this tan was that it looked lovely on my face, and I have since used it in conjunction with other tans as a face gel, where I will apply a small layer to my face once or twice a week. I think this product used as a face tanner along with He-Shi’s Express Liquid Tan would give a lovely over all tan.

Have you used this tan? What do you think?

xKx

Fake tan update, Vita Liberata’s pHenomenal 2-3 week tan.

I like most other people have a love hate relationship with fake tan, I love having a tan [I feel more confident and feel that I personally look better with one, sadly I do not have a nice Kirsten Stewart/ Anne Hathaway skin tone] but I hate the upkeep of it [let’s face it, it’s a lot of work and I’m kind of on the lazy side when it comes to these things].

For a while I had been keeping a good tanning routine of exfoliating, moisturising and fake tanning. However I found that after 4/5 days my tan needed topping up and I have found this to be the case with whatever tan I used [He-shi, St.Moriz, Vita Liberata]. So in realistic terms I was fake tanning twice a week whilst ensuring I maintained my routine for trying to keep my tan. However due to wearing bras with underwire I found that after a day or two my tan would wear off where my bra had rubbed and my armpits would show the wear of tear of my tan which left me having to choose my outfits wisely which proved especially annoying when we would get random warm days[I wonder if the fact that I was using mousse fake tans would have anything to do with how the tan rubbed off in certain areas? ]. I found that the upkeep was just too much on top of a 9-5 job as well as my university work in the evenings. I found that in my little spare time that I did have I had a choice of weather I wanted to fake tan or do something else with my time.

When I discovered that one of my favourite tans were launching a 2-3 week fake tan I was thrilled to say the least. This tan claims to last up to three weeks. You can see my previous post where this tan was discussed [Here].

Application:

Using a tanning mitt apply as you would a tinted mousse, blending colour as you apply. Avoid the heel of the hand, and wipe knuckles, knees and ankles immediately. Any unwanted application should be removed immediately as the colour will take to the skin in only a few minutes. Do not moisturise prior to application, except for areas of exceptionally dry skin. Do not apply with bare hands as colour will take to the palms of the hands.

To extend the life of your colour apply multiple layers of pHenomenal, i.e.:

1 application = approx 7 days
2 applications = approx 10+ days
3 applications = approx 2 - 3 weeks

Allow at least one hour between showering and reapplying, for optimum results leave 3 hours between each shower for a longer lasting tan.

My thoughts:

I purchased the tan in the shade medium as I had previously tried their mousse In this shade and liked the colour it gave. I applied this tan twice; I applied the first application before bed and rinsed it off after 16 hours and reapplied my second application which I washed off as normal the second morning.

I had an even tan with pretty much the same colour results as their normal medium coloured mousse, I think a third application would have looked too dark and fake on me given my fair skin tone.

This tan has a colour guide which washes off the next day in the shower with minimal staining of PJ’s. I usually wear my onsie for tanning to contain the smell and save my sheets from staining. This tan doesn’t smell of anything when applying it but an hour later there is a normal but slightly subtler fake tan smell. This smell washes away in the shower the next day and doesn’t linger and I would say that the smell isn’t as offensive as the st.moriz smell.

I was disappointed to learn that this tan didn’t last long on me at all, it lasted around four days. Their normal tanning mousse that I had been using had stayed on longer and that was with only one application. I don’t understand why this product didn’t work on me and I was very disappointed that it didn’t but thankful that I had bought this tan whilst on offer for £25 and that I didn’t pay full price for it. One positive about this fake tan is that it came off very easy when I soaked in the bath and used my exfoliating mitts to take it off; I wasn’t left with any dry tanned patches.

Reviews of this product are very scarce. I have only been able to find a few and I now question the sincerity of some of these reviews, perhaps they had been sponsored.

I had however spoken with one blogger/YouTube guru via twitter [Melanie Twiner] about the tan. Melanie had better results than myself and gave an honest review of the tan on her YouTube channel which you may find useful [see below for her review].

I would suggest trying  this tan for yourself if you don’t mind splurging on a fake tan product however I would recommend looking about to see if this tan is on offer beforehand. Let me know if you have tried this tan?

xKx

All Things Fake Tan: My fake tan history

I love reading people’s blogs in my spare time and one thing I’m always looking out for is review posts regarding fake tan. As you can see from the above picture I am somewhat of a tanorexic. I have tried a whole heap of fake tans that have left me either not tanned at all, like an oompa loompa or as I have found more recently a lovely golden bronzed.

My history of fake tanning dates back to my mid-teens where I am afraid to admit it that I only tanned my legs when wearing socks to school (this was very on trend and something that I remember most girls my age doing). I used tanning wipes from the local chemist which were approx 1-2 quid, who says you can’t do beauty on a budget? These wipes were hit or miss as you were unable to see where you had wiped thus ensuring that you were defiantly going to discover nice sexy streaks on your tangoed legs the next morning. In my late teens I went up market and began using the Garnier Ambre Solaire No Streaks Bronzer Dry Body Mist. My sister also used this fake tan but only on special occasions. I remember thinking that this fake tan would be brilliant if it had a guide colour as sometimes you would miss bits and would thus look streaky the next day. I am surprised to think that they haven’t yet added a guide colour to this product especially considering the price. I remember this tan smelling very sweet on application and feeling very greasy. I would smell of dried biscuits the next day and come to think of it I actually smellt like biscuits every other day after that until the tan faded off....hume.

My early university days saw me using the likes of sun shimmer instant wash off tan. However the matt version was always nearly impossible to find which resulted in me always buying the shimmery version. As cringe worthy as it is to admit this, I applied it all over...yes even my face which left me like a walking glitter ball. But hey, we were only going to the club and it would be dark...right? My brother was dating a girl at the time that had an aversion to fake tanning. She flippantly gave me a bottle of fake tan practically full exclaiming that she had no use for it. Little did she or I for that matter know she was handing me one of my favourite fake tans that I would say is one of my three Holy Grail fake tanning products to date. I’m sure your reading this thinking, just tell me what tan she handed you already....well she gave me a very large bottle of He-Shi Liquid Express tan.  This tan saw me through the rest of my fake tanning days where my housemate and I would go halfers on a bottle...ensuring that we each had enough money left over for new clothes, drink and a Chinese on the way home.

I took a break from He-Shi fake tan mainly because I moved back home and it wasn’t as readily available to me anymore and I was finding it quite costly as I would have to buy the tan myself. I have also tried and still have in my collection today St Moriz fake tan lotion and mousse which is great value for money at £3 a bottle from my local semi-chem. I was an avid fan of this fake tan and it was at one stage my Holy Grail fake tan. However I found this tan to wear off patchy and could have a drying effect on my skin. I will however still return to this love affair mainly if I am heading out on a night out and require a darker tan. I have also tried two fake bake products (original and flawless) but did not rate these products highly. Since discovering however that www.feelunique.com are selling He-Shi at a cheaper price I feel I may stock up, I have recently purchased their face and body gel which I will review for you shortly.

He-Shi fake tan gel for face and body

Blends in lovely and smooth

I bet your wondering what my other Holy Grail fake tanning products are? Ok I’ll spill. I am naturally pale and have visible veins on the back of my legs which I detest as a girl at school once made some horrible comments about them and to this day I have been paranoid about them. Whilst in my first year at university I discovered Sally Hansen makeup for legs. I’m telling you now this product is a God send. It is basically foundation for your legs that will hide the most unsightly veins, giving an airbrushed look to your legs. It is a wash off tan but I would say it is water resistant and requires a good scrub the next day in the shower to remove it. I have had many a drink spilled over my legs to discover that my Sally Hansen had not budged. The only downside to this product for me is the price, retailing at almost £10 a bottle, which may not seem like much to some but for a student on a low budget it is a lot considering the amount I pay for my fake tan.  Other products boasting to do a similar job have since came on the market such as tights in a tin for around £3. This tan is fine for those on a budget and if I’m feeling strapped for cash ill buy a can however I don’t feel it has the same naturally tanned colour as Sally’s one and doesn’t have the same staying power in the drink spillage scenario.

My final Holy Grail fake tanning product is Vita Liberata fake tanning moose. I love watching Made in Chelsea and discovered that Binky and Millie use Vita Liberata fake tan. I like many of hundreds of other girls admired their tan and was delighted to think that I too would be able to look like them (well as tanned as them). Walking around Debenhams I discovered that they were selling two shades of Vita Liberata’s silken mousse and a tanning mitt for £25. This tan had no smell whist applying it and only a faint normal fake tan smell the next morning which didn’t linger.  I received many a compliment from those of both sexes and differing ages on how nice may tan was and how natural it looked. I am interested in trying the lotion option offered by Vita Liberata and I imagine it will be one of my next purchases. The tan I am next to try out is Vita Liberata’s pHenomenal 2-3 week tanning mousse in shade medium. I discovered this through reading Sarah’s blog (link to Sarah's blog) and I was so excited to discover that one of my favourite tanning brands were bringing out a 2-3 week tan. I was so excited that I instantly went looking for it on the internet to discover that the tan was retailing at approximately £40 which for me as a slightly broke student couldn’t quite afford so I decided that I would just save for it. However whilst procrastinating I discovered that Boots were doing a special offer on Vita Liberata’s fake tan and discovered that they were selling the pHenomenal 2-3 week tan for £25. I just had to have it. As the local Boots near me didn’t stock the tan I arranged for it to be delivered to the store. I picked it up today and am excited to test it. I plan to review the tan online and will give updates as to how the tan is fairing. I plan to try this tan out over the weekend, so watch this space.

This was my first EVER blog post :D yay!!!



xKx