I have to trick myself into using self-tanner. It’s a brilliant concept but the reality can be messy and fraught with all sorts of dangers. And as my clever friend and colleague Janine Falcon observes, it is all too easy to make your skin look like faux wood grain if you’re not careful. To mitigate this, London-based, tanner-to-the-stars James Read’s products are virtually idiot-proof (and I say this as a card-carrying idiot,) all in glamorous, faintly 1950s seaside hotel, retro packaging.
Just like the name says, with Click & Glow Tan Drops, you dispense a couple of drops into moisturizer or serum in the palm of your hand and smooth over your face. It’s gradual and you can ‘titrate’ the amount used (my favourite medical term meaning ‘continuously measure and readjust the balance’) incrementally increasing the amount added until you reach the desired shade of ‘glowy, but not resembling a glass of Tang. With apologies to Shakespeare, remember that “restraint is the better part of self-tanning”. Less is definitely more.
Gratifyingly, for a tanning brand owner, Read encourages a light hand to prevent one from looking overtly ‘tanned’. In fact, a single application of the Gradual Tan Sleep Mask Tan Face in Light/Medium, applied before bed, results in faint but believable colour. It’s more of a subtle enlivening with no overt tint, so if you have alabaster skin (the kind that can actually look blue) this is a great one to try. You can happily stop at ‘barely detectable glow’, or repeat nightly until you reach your desired shade.
One final, sterling bit of advice: beauty writer and Guardian columnist Sali Hughes recommends using self tanner at bedtime after a night of excessive imbibing. Naturally, you’ll wake up the next morning feeling like hell, but the (faux) healthy glow will minimize the visible signs of devastation. To me, this defines useful beauty journalism.