Andy Jones

Sunless tanning for men is the most up and coming treatment in salons at the moment. Gone are the days of orange spray tans! Tanning brands have created solutions with no fragrance, no orange tones and that lend to your skin tone, rather than being a “one colour fits all”!

So, what to expect when you’re getting your first spray tan?
The first question I always get asked is; what do I wear?
The answer to that is completely down to you, boxers, thongs or your birthday suit would all be acceptable options, most spray tanners just ask for a warning if you’re going commando. Most clients are in underwear or naked but both seem to always forget to take off their socks? That’s definitely a “man thing”.

Some salons offer a tanning booth (the ross from friends tanning experience) but I do manually spray tan my clients, so I will always tell you all the positions you need to do to ensure the best coverage. Also, the tan I use is a controlled tan, so you can wash it off at different times according to how brown you’d like to be.

75% of a good spray tan is prep! Preparation of your skin is key to it looking natural. If you have ever seen a false tan that looks scaly or flaky, its usually down to not having to exfoliate your skin beforehand. Imagine your skin has patches of dead cells that are due to flaking off tomorrow and you have your spray tan today? Tomorrow those cells will flake away and underneath is your “pre-tan skin” and now you look like you’ve developed a skin condition overnight. That, my friend, is a sure way to give the game away….
Another way of ensuring you have the best tan is moisturising. There are key times to moisturise for a natural-looking tan. One of my top tips is to just moisturise only your dry areas before your tan. Moisturiser works as a barrier for the tan and although you don’t want to slap it all over, you do not want tan sticking to any dry areas and going darker or sticking to areas you don’t want it. Examples of places to moisturise are; the knees, elbows, palms of hands, soles of feet and heels.

After your tan you’ll be left with what we call a guide colour (this just allows us to see where we’re spraying) this will wash off, so any drips or darker bits will wash away, so just leave these until your washing the guide colour off. When you come to showering just let the tan rinse away, no scrubbing and then pat dry when you’re out. The final tip for an even tan is MOISTURISE, MOISTURISE, MOISTURISE! This will help your tan fade in a non-obvious way.

So, there you have it, the guide to the perfect sunless tan! See, nothing to be afraid of!
To conclude my tanning blog I will say, I will always have heard any question you need to ask before and if by some miracle I haven’t, then I can guarantee there’s somebody else out there who needs those answers too.

Happy healthy tanning my friends!
Love the spray tan guru (Beth)