My Tan Testing Thursday - Make Believe colour | fake tan | false tan | holiday | leedsbloggermeetup2012 | looking | make believe | make believe beauty | natural | review | self tanner | skin | tan | when flowers fall | whenflowersfall

This is the second of two self tanner reviews, the first was posted yesterday. :) 

 On Thursday I went swimming with my girls and I figured it would be the perfect night to try out a couple of new self tanners. Last Saturday we were given a little treat from Make Believe in our goody bags. 

The product we received was the self tan lotion in zone 3. (RRP £24.50)

 During my little swimming sesh I snuck into the sauna to give my skin a bit of a treat. When I got home, I jumped in the bath and exfoliated like crazy. My skin felt amazing. I then proceeded to smother myself in various lotions and potions to try and achieve a cracking glow for this bank holiday weekend.

Make Believe  

I decided to use the make believe tan on my legs. I felt as it the lotion was white and had no colour guide, this was probably best. My legs are the hardest part of me to tan, purely because due to previous jobs, I have a lot of dry skin in this area. 

Just like the Xen-Tan I posted about yesterday, I made sure to moisturise any areas I felt the tanner may have clung to. This included my knees and around my ankle/heel areas.

The lotion itself seemed to take a long time to soak in. I felt very tacky for about an hour after applying it, meaning I was walking around my house pretty much half naked until I felt I was able to put on a pair of loose fitting pjs. Other than this, the application was easy, I just felt you have to be very careful not to apply too much product to one area, and to make sure that it's all rubbed in. Circular motions really help in getting a result with no streaks. 

The Make Believe Lotion also had an amazing tropical fragrance. Extremely fruity and very pleasant to work with. None of the burnt biscuit scent here!

As you can see in the photos above, again the tanner started to develop within the hour, and by the time morning came around I had a very nice tan.

Even though I did moisturise, I found the product still managed to cling to some stubborn dry areas. This was remedied pretty easily just by exfoliating those areas again whilst in the shower. 

Just like the Xen-Tan from yesterday, I'm incredibly happy with the result of this product. The colour is maybe not as strong as the Xen- Tan, but it definitely natural looking and I couldn't see any streaks. 

Like I said before, this lotion is a zone 3. The zones run from 1 to 5 and each zone includes different products for different skin types/outcomes.

If you want to find out which kind of Make Believe product/zone is right for you, you can check out their zone guide here. 

I'll be using every single drop of this bottle up, and I may even repurchase a zone 4, because you can't let the grey English clouds stop you from at least looking like you've been on an amazing holiday!!

They also sell a zone 4 airbrush aerosol version which has caught my eye.

You can both purchase and find out more about the Make Believe products on their website here! 

I had never heard of Make Believe before, had you?

My Tan Testing Thursday - Xen-Tan bronze | fake tan | holiday skin | natural | review | self tanner | skin | skin care | tan | tanned | when flowersfall | whenflowersfall | xen tan | xentan

This is the first of two self tanner reviews, the other will be posted tomorrow! :)

On Thursday I went swimming with my girls and I figured it would be the perfect night to try out a couple of new self tanners. 

We had been given a couple of samples from Xen-tan last Saturday at #leedsbloggermeetup2012.

Tomorrows review will be of a self tanner from Make Believe, again of which we received last Saturday.

During my little swimming sesh I snuck into the sauna to give my skin a bit of a treat. When I got home, I jumped in the bath and exfoliated like crazy. My skin felt amazing. 

I then proceeded to smother myself in various lotions and potions to try and achieve a cracking glow for this bank holiday weekend. 

Xen-Tan

I applied the Xen-Tan dark lotion to my arms and décolletage, this is the product I had most faith in. 

Before I did so, I made sure to moisturise my elbows, this is the one area most prone to psoriasis and I wanted to make sure that the product didn't cling to any dry skin that I may have missed. 

The self tanner is very dark in colour. It looks really scary. When applied to the skin the colour isn't as crazy, it gives you a slight colour guide and this really helps with applying the product as smoothly as possible. This way you can avoid any kind of streaking.
The thing that you notice straight away is the very strong scent of marzipan. Personally I love it, but it might not be for all. It does definitely beat the smell of biscuits though.

The self tanner dries very quickly, which I loved, and you are able to put clothes on without them sticking to you. It is advised to steer clear of any light colour clothing though. 

As you can see from the photos above the product starting to develop nicely within the next hour, but I decided to sleep in it and wash it off in the morning. 

In the morning my arms looked amazing. In the above photo it looks rather orange, but I can promise you it was not. The photo was taken before my shower, so afterwards the colour was slightly less in your face. I really did look like I had been lying in the sun for the past week. Another bonus was that my elbows were not dark at all! 

Xen-Tan is a little pricey, this lotion in particular is currently on sale on the Xen-Tan website for £21.74, but I honestly feel it's one of the best tans I have ever tried. It gives the most natural colour, I had no streaks of patches and it is wearing so well. 

I'm trying really hard to make the sample I have last as long as I can, but I would most definitely re-purchase this product. 

You can find out more about Xen-Tan here.

Check back tomorrow for the review on Make Believe tan, which I tried out on my legs, (my harder to tan area.)