Tanning For The Pale Girls

I am going to admit it now, I am a very pale girl. Irish genes run in the family and I was kindly given paper white skin that burns like a tomato in the sun. Not even the kind of sun burn that turns to a tan after a few day. When I was younger I had to choose between paper white skin or tomato skin; I usually just stuck to pale skin. I bet your thinking 'well why didn't you just use fake tan?' In all honesty fake tan scared me when I was younger, 'The Only Way Is Essex' tan put me off the whole idea of tanning because I did not want to look like I had walked out of Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory as a Umpa Lumpa.

Anyway last summer I started experiment, shall we say, with the Palmer's Cocoa Butter Natural Bronze Gradual Tanning Moisturiser ( that is a mouth-full!). A friend, who also has very pale skin, recommended this to me and I though I would give it a try because her tan looked really natural but you could tell she had a tan. I never really got the grips of how to use it last year but now I have sussed out a tanning routine that works well for me. I hate to say this, but just as a little disclaimer I am not a professional tanner, I am in fact pretty much a newbie. I am sorry in advance if this is not the correct way to tan; it is just a routine that works well for me.

Firstly I start with by exfoliating my body at least a day before I plan to start tanning. At the moment I am using Soap & Glory's Scrub Of Your Life, I really like this because I can use it in the shower and as you rub it onto your body it kind of turns to a foam texture. It has those tiny little sugar grains in that feels like sand, but it isn't in any way harsh on my skin; it is more of a gentle scrub. On the day I want to tan I will use this scrub again in the shower before hand. After I have dried my body of a bit I will use a body butter. I much prefer body butters as I find they are a lot more moisturising, they tend to be more wintry products because of how thick and rich they are, but I really enjoy using the Soap & Glory The Righteous Butter. Once that has sunk in, which thankfully isn't long because I really don't like the feeling of it just 'sitting' on top on my skin, I will then take my hand mit and start to massage the Palmer's Cocoa Butter Natural Bronze Gradual Tanning Moisturiser all over my legs and arms. I didn't want to show you my tanning mit as quite frankly it's not the prettiest of things to look at. This tanning moisturiser comes out looking like a body lotion, as in it is a white bob standard colour. It sinks in really well and I usually wait a couple of minuets before getting dressed or doing too much because I don't want to risk getting it anywhere. While I am tanned I like to moisturise every day because my skin can feel a little dry, especially around my elbows, knees and thighs.

Because it is a gradual tan, I usually do this for two or three days straight to get the tan I want. Even though it is a gradual tan, after the first application you can tell you have tanned. What I love most is how natural the tan looks, even after several applications when you have built up the colour a bit stronger. So for pale girls this is great as you have control over how dark you want your tan to be and no matter how dark you go it will look so natural and sun kissed.

Do you have any other tanning product recommendations for pale girls? I hope you enjoyed the second the second post in It's Summer week on my blog.

MissBeccaBeauty xo