LOVING TAN

Honies we’re officially into the fall season! While for many of you this may be your favorite season with the cooler weather, vivid fall colors and Pumpkin Spice everything, unfortunately this season never fails to remind me just how pasty and sun deprived my skin can really get. I live in sunny California, so fortunately I’m able to soak up quite a lot of sunshine all year (safely, of course), but around this time of the year I still look to other options to achieve that golden glow.

In the past, I’ve used a few different self-tanners and let’s just say that the results were always subpar. They either left me looking too dark, too orange or the most dreaded, streaky effect. To be honest, for the last couple of years, I’ve almost completely avoided self-tanners all together. Unfortunately, this also meant that I had to accept my pale skin during the colder months because the previously mentioned results were a big Honey, No for me. That was until I heard about Loving Tan! When I initially saw Loving Tan 2 HR Express Self Tanning Mousse being recommended I will admit I did NOT buy into it at all. It wasn’t for a few more months and multiple blogger recommendations later that I knew this product was worth a shot and I bought my first bottle.

I opted for the “Medium” shade since so many other brands in the past had left me looking like a cheese puff. I figured that the lighter shade would be slightly easier to hide any undesired results. Once I received the product in the mail, I have to admit, I really didn’t have very high expectations. But after watching one of my favorite influencers do a step-by-step tutorial on how she applies the mousse, I knew I needed to put it to the test. A few days later, I was with my Aunt and she mentioned that she’s been wanting to purchase a self-tanner that she’s heard a lot about from another influencer. My Aunt mentioned that she took a screenshot of the product and of course she showed me a picture of the Loving Tan 2 HR Express Self Tanning Mousse. I quickly explained to her that I had just received this product in the mail but had yet to use it. We decided to both try it together that evening.

I’m going to walk you through the steps I took to prep my skin before using the product. Prepping the skin is crucial in order to achieve great results. You can easily accomplish this in just 3 steps:

1. The first step is to exfoliate! Exfoliate! Exfoliate!! Exfoliate!!! Grab your favorite sugar scrub and get to it! This is so important to do, as it removes any dead/dry skin and generally softens your skin making the mousse glide on with ease.
2. The next step is to shave. Make sure this isn’t a quick fix shave though (pretty sure we all do those at some time or another, right?). You need to really be sure you are removing all unwanted hair, as you will need a nice, smooth surface to apply the self-tanner. Also, you shouldn’t shave for a day or two after application as to avoid streaking and stripping the tanner.
3. The last step is moisturize! I cannot emphasize how important it is to moisturize any and every area of your body that you plan to apply the self-tanner to. Not only does adding lotion to your skin make the application easier, this also helps prevent the tanner from completely clinging to our naturally drier body parts and looking extra dark or splotchy (think of your elbows, heels of our feet, hands, etc.).

*Loving Tan also has a little “how-to” video for you on their site here.

Once I completed my prep, I was officially ready to start applying the product. It’s an absolute must that you use a tanning mitt here. If you use your hands, regardless of how fast you wash, they WILL be stained. And trust me that’s not a good look for anybody. For my legs, I used two pumps of mousse per leg, but for most other body parts I used only one pump per area. I also made sure to avoid dragging my tan mitt across any dry zones like my knees, heels and tops of my feet. You will want to wait until the very end and only do a light sweep over those areas.

Since I purchased the Express version, I only had to wait two hours before the product was fully developed- please note, if you purchase the Loving Tan Deluxe Bronzing Mousse you will need to wait about six hours for the product to fully develop. Two hours flew by and Honies let me tell you, the results were the best I had ever seen with any self-tanner that I have used! My skin had an even, noticeably bronzed color and was almost completely streak free. I think that the two areas that showed some small splotchy spots were due to me failing to generously apply moisturizer to that area (hands and elbow area). The tan lasted me about 6 days overall, but my face did start to fade a bit quicker but between daily face washing and regular makeup application, this is to be expected. However, I was pretty impressed that I still saw some results on my legs even at day 6, as I did shave my legs within those 6 days and I was expecting the tan to strip a bit faster.

I’m sure by now you can guess that I give the Loving Tan 2 HR Express Self Tanning Mousse a Honey, Yasss! It was also a total Honey, Yasss for my aunt too in case you were wondering 🙂 I’ve continued using this product whenever I need a little color-boost and always achieve great results that I am so happy with and I’m sure you will too!