Making Monday Pretty: The Ultimate Self Tanner
Posted by Hayley French on
It's official, winter has arrived, and unfortunately that also means a dryer, duller complexion. We find the best way to fake that glow is to use a self tanner, which also helps to even out any redness from dry skin and pesky pimples. After years of trying out many different self tanners, last year we discovered Xen Tan, and haven't looked back since. Developed by Dera Enochson, an ultra pale red head who spent her years envious of other people golden tans but unable to ever find a self tanner that would look natural on her light skin, she made it her mission to make the perfect one. The two main things that differentiate this tanner is the fact that it has an olive base to mimic a more natural, brown tan and its time release agent, which controls the amount of the sunless tan ingredient DHA released on the skin during application. When released too quickly, DHA creates those unpleasant odors and orange tones that make many people weary of using self tanner. Due to these two unique qualities, Xen Tan really is fool proof, and after using it for over a year on our face and body, we can confidently say we have never had a mishap, just compliments on how gorgeous our skin looks! Oh, and another bonus, our favourite formula (pictured above) and one of Xen Tan's best sellers, has a beautiful light vanilla scent that is actually pleasant. These days, we are mostly using our tanner on our face for a little pick me up, so here is our step by step guide to a mistake free face tan every time.
1. Cleanse and exfoliate your face lightly, we use our Clarisonic but any gentle exfoliator will do.
2. Apply a simple moisturizer (try not to use one with retinol or other anti aging ingredients as you don't want to risk altering the DHA in the tanner) around the eye area, around the base of your nose and then on the bottom half of your face and onto the neck. These are the places on your face that wouldn't normally get as tanned from the sun and by applying moisturizer to these areas, less of the tanner will be absorbed and give a more natural look rather than one uniform tan colour.
3. Squeeze out a quarter size amount and dot it onto your cheeks and forehead and spread evenly over your entire face. Make sure to get right up to the hairline, and lightly onto the ears and down your neck slightly so you don't have any obvious lines. If you want to add a bit more to the cheekbones and forehead you can add a bit more.
4. Take a wet q-tip and run it through your brows to make sure no tanner has collected there, then take a bit of dry tissues and gently rub around your hairline to make sure non has collected there either.
5. Make sure to wash your hands and cuticles thoroughly and wait for your tan to develop! This particular formula has sheer tint so you will notice the tan right away but usually I put my tanner on prior to bed and look forward to waking up with a beautiful sun kissed glow!
Although Xen Tan's website does not ship to Canada, it has lots of information on the different formulations and the products can be purchased and shipped to Canada via Nordstrom.
Happy Monday!