Review: Beach Colours Natural Self Tanner

I was quite the sun worshipper back in the day.  It was the time when they told us tans gave you a "healthy glow" and honestly, everyone does look better with a little color.  The problem is when I was a kid, sunscreen was for wusses.  Hand me some Hawaiian Tropic oil or stick me in a pool with the arms outstretched, face to the heavens and ask the sun gods to "fry me!"  The last time I uttered that phrase was in 2010 on Kauai.  Fry me, they did.  I also have a nice souvenir from that trip...a sun spot on my temple!  That crap is for grandma's...not thirty somethings!  Nope!

So then I became a sunscreen and self tanner fan.  That lotion from Jergen's worked fine but the smell was so bad I had to chuck it.  Luckily the drugstore knock off was similar in result with a more pleasant smell. When I began to become aware of just how many cancer causing and hormone changing products we use on a daily basis, I started to go natural not just with my skin care routine but I wanted to transition everything as much as possible.  This was now going to include sunless tanners.   (Enter any of your shampoos, creams, potions, etc in Google and type EWG after it and it will likely be in the database to tell you how toxic your potion is.)  After perusing Amazon for reviews, I saw Caribbean Solutions Beach Colors Natural Self Tanner (affiliate link) got good ones so I decided to give it a try.

I have sensitive skin so stuff like this can be tricky for me.  Here are the ingredients in the lotion.

This is the consistency.  Just your average run of the mill lotion.

It wasn't runny or anything and didn't even have a smell that I could detect in lotion form.  But you will get that tanner smell within a few hours because of the natural DHA that works with your body chemistry.

This is my arm before.

There's an initial whitish cast to the skin but it absorbs quickly after being rubbed in well.  Don't forget to lather up the palms of your hands with soap and rinse it off or you could end up with tell tale brown palm!  ;-)

Here's the result after 3 days of use:

In case you'd prefer a side by side:

I'm really pleased with the result!  No Tony the Tiger look, no smell that a *light* hand wash of the area won't get rid of.  (Honestly, I still used one of those bath puffs but went over it lightly with no run off.)  It stayed put for all of my workouts and I sweat pretty heavily during some of them.  Since I only put it on my forearms initially, I looked like I had a farmers tan so that was kind of the look I was going for since my upper arm is a little lighter than the forearm.

I am definitely going to use this throughout the summer and then slather on the sunscreen over it so I look sun-kissed without the hassle of you know, cancer, wrinkles, sunspots and such.  For me, this is one of the most important reasons...

Click above to enlarge

I will take a pretty much all clear from the EWG on my self tanner than one that rates moderate leaning toward high for toxicity with the same color results.  If you're a sunless tanner user and want to see if yours is listed, click here to scroll the list.

A few notes:

Always make sure you exfoliate before application or it'll show off your dead skin like nothing else!

Apply coconut oil or another deep moisturizing lotion to knees, ankles, knuckles, wrists and any place there is a natural bend or crease before application.

Those areas will be your tell tale signs so go light on them.  I usually apply to those areas with what is left after rubbing in the larger area.

If you wash your hands a lot, your hands will be the first place to fade, keep an eye on them and reapply lightly as necessary.

Do you use sunless tanners?  Would you consider switching to this  (affiliate link)  (or other) all natural sunless tanner?

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