I was at the drug store today, and was tempted to buy a bottle of sunless tanner. Like many people of Irish descent, I’m very very pale - I do not tan at all, only burn (I almost blinded some people at Demo and Psycat’s last weekend when I showed some leg). Besides, skin cancer runs in my family, and I don’t want to even try. Anyway, back to my Q: what the heck is in sunless tanner? How does it work? I looked at the ingredients, but the long chemical names meant nothing to me. But is it really safe to slather on stuff that changes the color of your skin? It’s kind of a weird idea if you think about it.
It absolutely works. I experimented with some of my mother’s sunless tanner on the top of my right hand. It didn’t react instantly but I noticed the next day that it was totally browned and the tan lasted for about two weeks.
I have no idea if it is toxic or not but the effects are absolutely undeniable. It makes you look tan, but whether the tan looks natural is another story. On some shades of skin it will blend with the original pigmentation whereas on others I suspect it may cause unnatural coloration(orange-colored skin), akin to tanning beds. I recommend a visit to the Clinique(or wherever) counter for a free sample.
Yes, it’s safe (I think), except it might not be safe for the people who die laughing at you (fake tan tends to make you look orange, not tanned, in my experience).
If you use it, you still need to be careful in the sun. Sunless tanner just colors the outer (dead) layer of skin cells, and does not increase the amount of melanin in your skin, so you can burn right through it.
Here’s a bit more detail on how dihydroxyacetone cream works:
It’s probably not the best stuff you could ever put on your skin, but not as bad as those alpha hydroxy acids they seem to put in all the handcreams these days.
Not to mention it’s tough to apply evenly so that it’s one tone all over, and not a little tan there, orange here, white over there.