Friday, December 19, 2008

A Spray Tan Backgrounder

By Jo Sampson

The most popular method to have a 365 day a year tan is by using a spray tanning booth on a regular basis. The reason for this is that sunbathing regularly damages your skin and health and gives you more risk of skin cancer. People are now looking for new ways to achieve a tanning effect safely.

The fastest growing artificial method is spray tanning which is generally carried out at a beauty salon. Although bronzing agents have been around for many years, they tend to leave streak marks unless professionally applied.

Just to provide an even more convenient service, manufacturers have introduced spray tanning equipment that can be used in the home too. While there are different ways to provide an alternative tan, the way to achieve it and make it longer lasting lies with spray tanning technology.

Initially you need to exfoliate which will eliminate all the dead skin cells from your body. If you apply a tan agent to dead skin it will just fall off and leave light spots in its place.

To complete the preparation, the skin needs to be moist and ready to accept the tan so a good skin moisturizer will need to be applied all over. Always, always, always wear disposable surgical gloves when applying a self tanning cream etc. To avoid any other application mistakes that could give away the fact that the tan is not real, make sure those fingers, feet, elbows and knees are only given the lightest of coats as they have a habit of coming out darker.

Even spray tanning can cause the odd problem if there is an excess and it starts to run so take a towel you no longer want with you to wipe it off.

Always stay as still as possible after artificial tanning to allow time for the application to settle down and create an even coating. Agents of all types will leave stains on your clothing almost as soon as you put them on so consider what you intend to wear once you have finished.

Dark clothing is obviously the best choice as even if it does stain, it won't notice so readily and you won't have to throw the clothing out. To get the most from your artificial tan, follow these guidelines and you won't go far wrong. - 15634

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