On Wednesday I went to
Perfect Tan near BU and Becky came along as moral support :) Earlier in the day the person who confirmed my appointment told me that I should shower and exfoliate, and lightly moisturize before my appointment. So I rushed back to MIT from lab, stopping at CVS on the way to buy a poofy scrubby thing and some lotion, and showered in Dupont Gym at MIT.
Perfect Tan offers two kinds of UV-less tanning: mystic tan and custom air-brush spray tanning. The mystic tan is a chamber that you stand in and the machine sprays you with the pigment. It's all the same color and how dark you are depends on how long you stand in the chamber. The custom air-brush spray tan is applied by a person and there are three levels of pignment: light, medium, and dark. She applies two coats and you can choose the same pigment, or two different ones (like one medium and one light).
I opted for the custom air-brush because I've heard bad things about the chamber (like that it makes your hands, knees, and elbows SUPER dark and sometimes orange). I also figured because an actual person is applying the custom air-brush, she could help me fill in the non-tanned parts better so that I wouldn't have tan lines. So I paid $80 for 3 sessions (or $40 per session): one as a trial to make sure it works, one for the engagement photo session, and one for the wedding.
So this is my "before" picture:
My tan lines aren't actually that bad right now even though I've had a 3-hour practice every Saturday and a tournament last weekend. My tan coach has been doing a good job. :) I've been wearing sleeves when it's not super hot and applying massive quantities of sun screen (and actually remembering to apply every hour or so!) Sluts also suggested pouring cold water on the sleeves to make them cooler in hot weather.
They gave me a paper thong and a paper strapless bra (it's kind of like hospital gown material). And we thought the paper strapless bra was hilarious (it's one size fits all!):
And here's Becky trying it on...
And dancing...!
I don't have any actual pictures of the tanning chamber it because the owner scolded me for trying to take a picture of her salon. But I got into a chamber something not unlike this one except the one I was in had vents in the back and the sides that sucked in air so the pigment doesn't get everywhere in the room:
I removed all my clothing and just wore the thong because I didn't want bra strap tan lines. (Btw, that was the first time I wore a thong, sorry, TMI. =P) The lady came in and put Vaseline on my palms and my fingernails so they don't get darker. I thought I would feel really awkward standing mostly naked in front of her but she was really good about not making me feel even more awkward than I already was.
I chose two coats of "light" just to see what the results would be, and she said that later in the summer I can chose a darker shade depending on how dark I will be at that point. So I turned around in circles, turned my arms and legs in different angles so that she could spray everything evenly. Btw, the tanning stuff didn't smell bad at all, it had hints of maple syrup like the moisturizing self-tanner that I wrote about in a previous post. Anyway, then she wiped off the Vaseline with baby wipes and turned on a regular ol' floor fan and I stood in front of it to dry: 2 minutes on the front and 2 minutes on the back. All done!
This is my "after" picture:
And a side-by-side comparison picture:
The "before" and "after" pictures were taken about 30 minutes apart so the lighting did change a little but probably not by much. I feel like the spray tanning didn't really get rid of tan lines but rather it just made me a shade darker everywhere, so thus maybe the tan lines aren't as noticeable? However, some people have been telling me that the tan lines look *more* noticeable because everything is darker and there is more contrast. Anyway, I could definitely tell that the parts of me which rarely saw daylight, like my mid-section and my feet, were definitely darker. The spray tanning makes you feel a little bit sticky but it wasn't that bad.
I had to wait 6-8 hours before I could shower so I ended up showering about 5 hours later around midnight and a little bit of the bronzer/color came out in the water.
Today is Saturday (3 days later) so here's the progression:
I think in the future I'm going to get the spray tan a day or two (probably just the day before) the actual event. So what do you think, did the spray tanning make my tan lines look less or more obvious? Do you think the results were worth the time and money?
