Sunday, January 17, 2010

rant about spray tans..

One of my new year’s resolutions was to quit spray tanning. At what time in her life should a woman stop displaying the awful ‘leftover’ tan patches on her legs? Fake tan is the most wonderful thing… for the first three days… and the most embarrassing for the rest of the week.

I personally associate ‘the patches’ with orange teenage girls that I see on the streets of Sydney in abundance all year round. Unfortunately, it happens to the best of us. No tan and no girl is ‘patch resistant’ and no matter how hard to try to avoid the awful patches by applying tinted moisturisers, the shedding day will come. It might come a day or two later but it will come.

Having crossed the quarter-life barrier I know question whether it is appropriate for me to leave the patchy army…

I don’t like tanning. I hate sun spots. I love spray tans. They have an amazing ability to make you feel skinny, sexy and overall better looking. They also make you smell… That distinct smell of a freshly applied spray tan! These days even our boys are familiar with it. To be honest, it always makes me feel a little self-conscious. And I REALLY don’t want to be associated with the orange teenagers.

After having tried to scrub off the tan on the third day (and having lost three layers of skin) I came to the conclusion that maybe its time for my relationship with spray tan to end.

I felt very mature about not following the herd and being natural (and saving the cash), until I was at my friend’s place for a low key soiree a couple of days ago. There I found a group of super-tanned guys in one corner (their tan was actually real as it is mostly a product of surfing, jogging and various other summer sports) and a group of beautiful tanned girls in the other corner (this was a mix of fake tans and legit ‘baking’ with a tinge of red). And then there was poor pale little me…

A couple of people questioned my ‘moon tan’. Luckily I’d just come back from Europe where it was snowing non-stop and the excuse worked. What I didn’t tell them is that I had planned to stay this way for the near (and not so near) future.

My self-confidence levels were down while self-consciousness levels were soaring. I left the party feeling pale and ugly and with a thought that something needs to be done about this situation asap.

The next morning it occurred to me that there is no escape from this hell! I will either be pale and ugly or hot but smelly and patchy… to tan or not tan – that is the question…

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