Make me Bronzed and Beautiful

Hey sweets, so for the past week my favourite topic of conversation has been the wonderful fake tan, and by today my friends were getting absolutely sick of me and my tan word vomit, and recieving my St Moriz - DARK today in the post I though it was about time I did a post on my day to day tanning routine and what I do on a big night out. 

I do own a fair few different brands of fake tan although to add to my collection Xen-Tan is on my list and St Tropez as I have actually never tried it! The one I use the most is the Fake Bake 'Luxurious Golden' Mousse which comes in at about £17.99 however I was lucky enough to get it at £9 thanks to my lovely friend who works at Boots and got amazing discount! This has a lovely texture with the mousse almost doubling in size as it is pumped onto your skin. 

My routine starts of course with... 

1. Exfoliating, I use exfoliating gloves and Soap and Glory 'Flake Away', I swear by this exfoliator, I've used many indiviual brands and one from The Body Shop as well but find this one is great as I can use it on my face too and isn't too rough. I exfoliate 24 hours before I tan because I find exfoliating just before makes the skin quite raw and can cause the tan to cause stinking, but that may just be my skin, it's quite sensitive. 

2. Moisturising, I moisturise the driest areas on my body with my Body Shop 'Sweet Lemon' body butter; these are my knees, ankles, elbows, and if I'm using instant fake tan on my face I moisturise my eyebrows and hairline because tan can stain if not careful! Then with applying my tan I always work from my feet upwards, some think its better to work downwards but I find if I do my legs first then feel I need another layer for deeper colour the tan will be easier to apply second time round on drier skin! 

3. Hands and Face It's very difficult not to get lines on your hands so what I found has helped is by using simple cotton wool double faced pads to just gently rub it round your wrists and fingers, not leaving the white patch in the middle of your fingers! Then with my face I use the same double pads to slowly rub the tan in circular movements into my face making sure I work down into my neck and not forgetting to do my ears! However mainly with my face I use the Garnier Summer Body 'Deep Sun-Kissed Look' as tan often comes of your face very quickly so a bit of this on your face before bed every night prevents the brown body, white face!

Then throughout the week I top up my tan with St Moriz, the saviour and god of all fake tans. Coming in at about £3.50/£4 it's great for topping up the tan because Fake Bake is quite expensive and would be far too expensive (on my tiny student budget) to re-purchase every month or so! I tend to update my tan every 3 days and exfoliate beforehand just to make sure all the dead skin is removed and the tan will sit better on my skin. Every night it is also essential that I moisturise to keep the tan looking fresh and natural and prevent it from streaking.

Finally for going out I tend to use my Rimmel Instant Tan in Medium Matte as it is such a quick way of getting a deep tan for the night and makes you look extremely sun kissed! Also coming in at about £5.99 its an absolute bargain! (Although dont get water/drink down you on a messy night as major streaking will occur!!)

FAKE TAN MUST HAVES

Left-Right

Solait Bronzing Lotion - £6.99 Superdrug

Pure Cotton Wool Double Faced Pads - £1.70 Superdrug

Garnier Summer Body - £5 Superdrug

Exfoliating Gloves - £1 Primark
Fake Bake Mousse - £17.99 Boots
St Moriz Normal&Dark - £3.50-£4.50 Savers/Amazon/Ebay
Soap and Glory Flake Away - £6.60 Boots
Rimmel Instant -  £5.99 Boots

Lemon Body Butter - £12.50 The Body Shop
Tanning Mit - £1 Primark

Hopefully this will mean I wont be bugging my friends now with my constant chatter on fake tan! 

Apologies for the extremely long post! Enjoy!

Sophie x