Golden goddess by night, patchy orange mess by morning – most of us pale folk have a love/hate relationship with fake tan.
And when it comes to removing the stuff, everyone seems to have their own routine, but what really is the best way?
Well, St Tropez’s Jules Heptonstall, has finally given us the answer.
Speaking to Marie Claire, the tanning expert explained that the key to fake tan removal is to refrain from scrubbing.
"Don’t panic scrub. You’ll end up taking the tan off in patches and it’ll become a snowballing effect."
Jules recommended using a body polish with some massage oil instead. (We’re guessing baby oil would also do the same job.)
Or, you could take a dip in your local swimming pool.
Apparently, ‘‘The chlorine will break down the tan. In the showers afterwards, take those exfoliating gloves and work in circular motions. Steam rooms and saunas will soften the tan, too.’’
Just looking to remove that orange hue from your hands and feet? According to Jules, a paste made using two tablespoons of baking soda and a splash of water will do the trick.
Simply rub the mixture all over the area, leave for a few minutes before rinsing, and voilà, no one will ever know!
When it comes to fake tan, us Irish ladies are total pros.
Whether you keep fake tan strictly for special events or couldn't handle the thought of stepping outside without a sunkissed glow, you're no doubt already an expert in the application, removal and maintenance of tanning products.
Here are just a few of the struggles us fake tan lovers (read: addicts) have to face on a regular basis.
1. Feeling like a giant pink marshmallow after exfoliating all our tan off
It has to be done to ensure an even application but… NO-ONE LOOK AT US NOW PLEASE.
2. Writing off a solid chunk of our Thursday night as tanning time
Think of it as an investment for the weekend.
3. Always trying to get the balance right when tanning our hands
And don't get us started on tanning between our fingers…
4. Spending ten minutes twirling and waving our arms to speed the drying process along
So attractive whilst naked and clammy.
5. Freaking out because we've lost the only t-shirt we can wear while our tan develops overnight
Going topless is NOT an option. Skin on skin = streak city.
6. Ruining bed sheets, towels, carpets and walls on a weekly basis
Someone needs to invent tanning insurance.
7. Having to be stretchier than a gymnast when no-one's around to tan our back
That tiny area in the middle is a PAIN.
8. Ending up with manky faded patches if we leave it on longer than four days
Inside of the elbow, ankle, back of the knee and of course the underboob area. Scabies, anyone?
9. Knowing that certain items of clothing will only work when we're super-brown
Looking at you, white dress.
10. Being jealous of anyone who can actually work the pale look
We could too, if we weren't so pink and pasty-skinned.
Bellamianta have introduced a new era of tanning application as they launch a trio of brushes, designed to be used with their award-winning range of self tan and finishing products.
The Flat Body Brush, Luxurious Face Tanning Brush and Precision Body Brush are each uniquely designed to work with the brand’s vast range of products to create a naturally flawless, sculpted and long-lasting finish to your tan.
Flat Body Brush €27.99
Crafted to create a deliciously flawless glow, the new Flat Body Brush is an ultra-soft, densely bristled tool with a curved metal handle, to ensure optimum comfort. The synthetic bristles are gentle on the skin and provide the perfect amount of pressure to lightly buff your desired product into a diffused glow across the skin. Ideally paired with any of the Bellamianta Luxury Tanning’s array of self-tanning products or their award-winning Bronzing Powder, to expertly apply all over the body with complete control, resulting in a contoured glow.
Luxurious Face Tanning Brush €23.99
The soft, densely bristled Luxurious Face Tanning Brush is the perfect tool to masterfully create a naturally flawless finish on the face and neck, blending seamlessly into the rest of your body tan. The new Face Tanning Brush naturally compliments any of the Bellamianta Luxury Tanning’s liquid and mousse self-tanning products, all of which are safe for both the face and body, or their award-winning Bronzing Power.
Precision Body Brush €25
Velvety soft, and densely bristled, this curved brush is designed to expertly apply and seamlessly buff in liquid tan and highlighters onto the skin, resulting in a perfect finish each and every time. Lightly buff in liquid products onto the face, shoulders, collarbone, arms and legs for a naturally diffused radiance.
The New Bellamianta Luxury Tanning Brushes are available to purchase via www.bellamianta.com and stockists nationwide.
All three brushes are also available in an exclusive bundle on www.bellamianta.com paired with the original Bellamianta Luxury Tanning Kabuki Bronzing Brush, Makeup Bag and gift box, all in the brands new Rose Gold Hue for €85.
If like us you completely refuse to accept that the summer is over, this week’s Beauty Product of The Week will bring a smile to your not-so-sun kissed face. The cold season has appeared from nowhere it seems, and us summer-lovers are dreading the effects it might have on our complexion.
We need a saviour- something that will help us keep our glow as the days get short and sunny afternoons seem like a distant memory. This is where Bondi Sands comes in. With their brand-new range of ‘GLO’ products, you can hang on to your summer glow this autumn.
The new range is perfect for busy ladies (and gentlemen) who wish to glow up instantly. With three new instant tan products: Gloss, Matte and Shimmer, Bondi Sands has your sunless tanning needs covered. This gorge new range blurs the lines between self-tan and makeup, providing instant colour and texture that lasts. With shimmering colour and high shine luminosity, Bondi Sands Glo smooths out imperfections and is customisable for the face and body.
GLO MATTE ONE DAY TAN: Think Australian Summer, bottled. GLO matte will give you a natural beach babe tan, providing instant lustre and matte colour to skin. The skin perfecting formula can be used to top up both natural or self-tan, or to contour the face and body with a bronzing brush.
GLO SHIMMER ONE DAY TAN: For that lit-from-within glow, GLO shimmer one day tan is infused with light reflecting particles to highlight, giving you a glistening bronzed finish. Buff across the collarbone, cheekbones, eyelids and beyond, to enhance your skin’s natural radiance. Alternatively, mix with foundation to customise your glow and add a delicate sheen to your skin.
GLO GLOSS FINISHING GLOW: Worn on top of GLO Shimmer, GLO Matte or alone, GLO gloss finishing glow delivers both colour and texture to create a bronzed dewy look. A definite beauty bag essential, the reflective high-shine formula highlights your face and body, adorning your skin with radiance.
Transporting the Australian summer is what Bondi Sands do best, and as the gloomy Irish winter approaches, the new GLO range is JUST what the doctor ordered to keep us looking glowy and sun-kissed.
Pick up your Bondi Sands ‘GLO’ products today for just €11.99. Available at Cloud10beauty, Lloyds, McCauley’s and independent pharmacies nationwide.
It's fair to say that Maura Higgins has completed the best 'hot girl summer' possibly since records began.
The Longford beauty stormed into the Love Island villa, ignored the haters, expressed her views and positive attitudes to sex and nabbed Curtis Pritchard without a single f*ck to give.
We have to applaud the woman, she truly is Maura D. Higgins: Queen of Ireland.
We spoke to the legend herself at the latest Bellamianta event, which showcased stunning tinted self tan mouse, skin perfecting illuminating bronzing powder and flawless filter body makeup. The reality star has been a brand ambassador with the beauty brand for a while now, and it's fitting that it's her first event since exiting the villa.
Speaking about life since leaving the show, Maura gushes about her professional dancing beau, saying that they've barely spent any time apart. The chaotic life of newfound fame must be difficult to navigate, but she's making time for Curtis;
“I’ve not really got time to process anything, it’s just been so overwhelming and it’s just been hectic since getting out. Curtis and I have only spent one night apart, we’ve been with each other non-stop”.
The 28-year-old has landed a slot on This Morning, with her own segment involving Maura as an agony aunt. The Thursday show went down a storm, with UK viewers adoring her no nonsense approach to dating.
The star was asked about Curtis' recent interview where his bisexuality was mentioned for the first time;
“You can’t believe everything you read in the papers. I don’t read the papers, he doesn’t read the papers. We’re not going to start reading the papers now just because we’re in them. People’s opinions do not matter to us. We’re very very happy.”
Despite the fact that Maura has been with a woman, she denied claims of her own bisexuality;
“I wouldn’t, I’m 100% into guys. It was a drunken, crazy night. A bit of fun. It was a work friend.”
The grid girl's start in the Love Island villa wasn't easy, with Tommy eventually choosing Molly Mae Hague over Maura. The aftercare programme this year has escalated massively, and Maura said she was warned about the press;
"They told me at the beginning that there was a bit of hate for the way I went about things with Tommy. I don’t care what people think of me, I think everyone knows that by now. I wasn’t expecting the response I got.
“I’m so opinionated and I did expect to come out to a lot of hate. That’s the truth. I didn’t expect to last in there as long as I did. I thought I’d be out in the first three days. To get to the final, I just couldn’t believe it. And then coming out, the support has been amazing. I mean…Amy Schumer! I almost fell off my chair, that’s the truth. I still can’t believe it”.
Higgins was praised for her open and positive views on female sexuality in particular, and has become so infamous for her "fanny flutters" that even US comedian Amy Schumer professed her love. The incident with Tom Walker was what brought the entire UK's attention onto Maura, after she slammed his less than chivalrous behaviour. With the line; "Let's see if she's all mouth or not", Tom brought Storm Maura into the weather forecast and we LIVED for it.
“Just because a woman talks about sex, doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. I was never going to go into the hideaway and sleep with Tom. Making that horrible comment and assumption was out of order.”
She described her filter-free life growing up in Longford, where she could freely talk about sex with her family;
“I can talk to my mother about anything. I mean anything. I’d never be ashamed to talk about sex. When I’m talking about sex in the villa, I was so surprised with how people’s reactions were. They were so shocked, but it’s a natural thing. We all have sex. I had sex in my own house with the parents there. The way I was brought up was that you could talk about anything. I didn’t have to filter anything growing up, with my family. It’s normal to me”.
She had some strong words to say about former Islander Belle Hassan describing Maura as 'demanding' for always 'needing a cigarette'. The Longford native said Belle was "talking sh*t," and we had to laugh.
When asked if there is any truth to the make-up artist's comments, Maura said: "Absolutely not.
"They would of never ever, ever heard me looking for cigarettes. So what you do, if you want to go for a smoke, you stand at the front door, and when the gallery see you on the camera, they speak through and say 'off you go', so it's not like you're in the villa with everyone else going 'I want a cigarette!' You don't say that. You just go to the front door where nobody is, so they never would of seen me. That's absolute rubbish."
She also denied any claims of witnessing Anton and Molly-Mae's lack of communication in the villa.
The Scottish gym owner said himself and the influencer were never mates and didn't speak in the villa, and even unfollowed her on Instagram.
NEWS: Anton has revealed why he unfollowed Molly-Mae on Instagram:
“When I was in the villa my management followed every islander. On the outside I noticed Molly-Mae on my newsfeed, so I unfollowed her. I have nothing against her, we just didn’t speak in the villa.”#LoveIslandpic.twitter.com/YNdw9GYrsz
Maura says that everyone spoke in the villa, so we're calling his bullsh*t;
“I’m unsure, because he said that they didn’t speak in the villa. I never noticed it, everyone spoke in the villa. Him unfriending her, I don’t know what’s going on. I never saw any issue.”
Finally, we had to ask her about which Islander she'd unfollow, if she could; "Jordan. Absolutely Jordan" she said, without hesitation.
Feeling shame can impact negatively on women’s wellbeing, confidence and mental health. A new survey conducted by St. Tropez, has found that shaming can be a very real part of Irish women’s day-to-day life. In Ireland, tanning is commonplace, with 1 in 5 women wearing tan daily and almost half (44%) revealing they’d wear it to dinner.
Yet despite being the biggest tanning region of Great Britain with 65% of Irish women using self-tan vs 45% in the North of England (the UK region with the most number of self-tan wearers), why are so many shaming? Who is doing it and why?
55% of Irish women admit to judging their fellow females for wearing a sunless tan with 7 out of 10 (68%) women in Limerick admitting to having judged other women who use self-tan specifically compared to just over a half (54%) of women in Dublin.
58% of women who have experienced judging looks and insults say that their confidence was seriously knocked, they went straight home, and they did not wish to leave the house. Whilst 70% of the women surveyed admit a badly applied tan is the number 1 reason they judge another’s appearance.
Shocking. In an age where positive body confidence messages are high on the agenda in schools, the workplace and from consumer brands – it appears that its women who need to start supporting the cause.
But, in-spite-of the stigmas, the survey revealed that the top two reasons for Irish women proudly wearing fake tan are to make them feel confident and look well with 41% citing confidence in particular. In addition, having a post-holiday tan is a confidence booster for 27% of Irish women, which also suggests that golden glowing skin inspires us to feel our best and on top of our game.
These insights have led St. Tropez to boldly address the stigmas surrounding self-tanning head-on, with a motivational campaign entitled You Set the Tone which aims to highlight that tanning is more about how you feel than how you look and a goal of empowering women to feel more confident, every day. Launching on the 10th April, the campaign aims to put the Self back in self-tan and has the support of Philanthropist and Charity Founder, Katie Piper, as well as an army of brand fans.
Katie said, “I’m backing St. Tropez’s You Set the Tone campaign as it’s vitally important for women to feel confident in their own skin and with their own bodies, and if a beauty product or regime can help them achieve this, it can only be positive.
Every woman has an individual reason for how they wear their make-up or hair and it’s no different with self-tan. Tanning doesn’t just add colour, it can also help to even out skin tone, cover up pigmentation or redness, allow you to wear less make up or go without heavy foundations.
The survey findings show that us women need to be supporting and celebrating each other and finding ways to improve our self-esteem and ultimately, our mental wellbeing”
St. Tropez is pledging to give women across Ireland the tools to feel confident, look glowing and make tan-shaming for bad application a thing of the past with game-changing developments. New St. Tropez Purity Bronzing Water Gel, which sold out within hours of its official launch in February, is a one of a kind innovation that means no-streaks, no-transfer, no-stickiness and no-fake tan smell, and 88% of users agree.
Enough of the judgement! St. Tropez boldly empowers women to set their own tone.
The Irish Cancer Society has issued a warning to the public regarding the potential dangers associated with the fake tan injection, Melanotan.
The substance is banned under Irish law, though it can be easily purchased online, and there are even reports of it being sold in certain gyms and tanning shops around the country.
According to reports, one in 10 people using the HSE needle exchange programme are using the illicit product.
Originally designed as a treatment for skin cancer, the product has since been marketed toward those seeking the perfect tan.
Users of Melanotan often suffer severe side-effects such as high-blood pressure and flu-like symptoms as well as acne and black blotches on the skin.
Kevin O'Hagan from the Irish Cancer Society has warned of the dangers:
"The difficulty is it's an illegal substance and it's highly dangerous. Some of the reports we're hearing in relation to the side effects, that range from sickness right through to a link to melanoma skin cancer, really can cause a lot of difficulties for someone," he said.
"[The side effects] range from sickness, acne, high blood pressure, people often get flu-like symptoms when using it. We've heard reports of people getting body swelling and dark, black blotches on their skin and freckles getting brown."
Most of us would literally jump through hoops to achieve a natural summer glow (or an unnatural orange hue, whatever floats your boat).
Whether it means using a whole bottle of Cocoa Brown, getting naked in front of a stranger for a spray tan or even exposing ourselves to dangerous UV rays, there is literally no limit to the lengths us Irish women will go through to get that radiant glow.
And while we all hate being pasty white, what happened to this British lady really shows the damage these machines can do to our skin.
Zaynab Alkhatib, a glamour model from Manchester, went to her local tanning salon twice in one day.
The 30-year-old spent twenty minutes topping up her tan at around lunch time before coming back to the salon in the evening for a further twelve minutes under the UV lights.
According to Zaynab, the salon in question, Savannah High Tech Tanning, did not warn the model about the dangers of over-exposure but the results speak for themselves.
After 32 minutes on a sunbed in one day, Zaynab suffered red and painful blisters all over her stomach and legs.
"I still can't work now," Zaynab said to the Manchester Evening News.
"I was supposed to do a shoot this week and I haven't been able to. I have just been stinging and lying in bed."
Most of us – at some stage or other – have delved into the just fine and dandy fake tans readily available in supermarkets and pharmacies.
You read the instructions carefully and give it your best try. Most of the time it works out great, and for those other times… well, we just won't talk about them.
So when we recently discovered that you can use an old tea bag to self-tan, we pondered over whether it would work or not.
Yes, we make face masks and hair masks from products in our kitchen cupboards but tanning is a whole different story. No one wants to end up a weird brown or orange hue when they wake up in the morning!
So, we found beauty writer, Cheryl Wischhover's account of how she used the delightful tea bag to tan herself.
The results may surprise you.
Cheryl first tells us that there is an active ingredient in tea called tannic acid that gives it its colour, so the stain is perfect for tanning.
She used Twinings English Breakfast tea for the DIY project. Recipes vary online but she used one tea bag for every one to 60mls of hot water. Cheryl split the difference and used 12 teas bags in 475ml hot water.
She left it soaking for about 20 minutes, wringing all the bags out individually to make sure she got all the concentrated liquid out.
She ended up with the most powerful looking mug of tea she has ever seen!
Cheryl then poured the liquid into a mist-spray bottle and tested it on her arm. It dried in quite quickly but she had to spray a lot of it to get a dark colour. When she woke up the next morning it was still there. Result!
She then decided to go to the gym and it all heads downhill from there. Within 20 minutes of running on a treadmill, pockets of brown liquid were falling by her side. The smell of tea filled the air and she had to rub the remainder onto her towel. Not a very good look!
It all started so well but as a durable tan, we think we'll still with our regular stuff, thanks all the same.
OK, so we get that looking like Beyonce or Jennifer Lawrence probably doesn’t come easy – but WOW is LeAnn Rimes’s beauty regime intense.
In fact, the singer said she has to take 40 supplements and use a total of seven different lotions on her face… every day.
“I’m a big vitamin person,” she admitted. “I take like 20 pills in the morning and 20 at night — fish oil, prenatal vitamins, probiotics, biotin,” she added.
“I have an herbalist I work with who has put me on a bunch of different things. I’m very strict about making sure I take them.”
In the same Into The Gloss interview, LeAnn, who turns 33 later this month, also said that she suffers from her psoriasis – a condition which once was so bad that she wouldn't leave the house without wearing multiple pairs of tights.
“When they say beauty is way more than skin deep, it’s hard for people who have psoriasis to wrap their minds around that. Some people even think it’s contagious and want to stay away,” she revealed.
“I’ve had it under control for about ten years, so it’s been this liberating thing for me to be able to wear shorts and a bikini.
“People make so much fun of me and my bikinis, but I would walk around naked if I could because I was one big scab at one point!”
She furthermore delved into her “seven-product” face-care routine and regimented fitness schedule.
Ms Rimes, who has been married to her second husband Eddie Cibrian since 2011 also has a self-tanning machine for her house so that she’s always bronzed.
“My assistant, Kiki, and I love to spray-tan so much, so we finally bought a machine and started to spray each other,” she says.
“The machine is like $500, so we save so much money. We do it once or twice a week. It’s like a car wash.”
It seems pre-holiday prep is just as important as the actually holiday and just as expensive.
Nobody likes to look less than fabulous and tanned on the beach and it seems more and more people are heading to the tanning booth or the hairdressers before hopping on the plane. With our pasty skin it’s not really surprising, if we’re honest – nobody wants to look less than fabulous in a bikini.
However, it’s not just us ladies who are doing a lot of holiday prep.
A survey conducted by Hotels.com has revealed that Irish men and women can spend up to €150.00 getting ready for their holliers.
The poll revealed that 70% of those surveyed will head to the hairdressers or beauty salon before their holidays in their quest to look nothing but gorgeous in the sun.
However, while most people are now more sun savvy, revealing that they wear suncream, a quarter revealed they use sunbeds before heading away.
