Caring for your tan involves keeping it moisturized, removing spray tan from places that have taken on too much of the DHA (the sugar that makes your skin develop the brown color) and using specialized products to extend the life of your tan.
1. Moisturize like crazy. Before your spray on tan, you exfoliated, so the layer of dead skin cells is flat and shallow. Then you had your tan, which was developed in the dead skin layer. After your tan you have to guard it from becoming dry and rubbing off. The best way to do it is to moisturize it morning and night. (You start after you had a shower.) It means, dead skin cells will be moist, and stay "plastered" to your body.
2 .Avoid things that will exfoliate your skin excessively. How about hot, luxurious bath after your spray on tan? I don't think so! That will make your skin exfoliate faster, as will rolling in the sand on the beach. A short swim in the sea will not take much off however, but a swim in the chlorinated pool will. (Chlorine will not exfoliate the tan, it will bleach it).
3. Use gentle shower products. Some soaps are too harsh, using them can take tan off in patches. If you have to use the soap, use good quality ones that moisturize. Better still; a gentle shower gel will be much better for your spray tanned skin.
4. Touch up the spray tan. The spray tan has a tendency to come off first from places that are used the most like hands, feet and face (lots of face cosmetics have exfoliating qualities). If you wear tight clothing like jeans, you might find that your legs get lighter in some places (tops of your thighs) first.
5. Too much of a good thing? Hands, feet elbows and knees seem to take on more spray tanning solution than the rest of the body, because they have more dry skin on them. It is important to exfoliate those places extra carefully before you have your spray tan. Personally, I do not worry too much about the knees, because I figure that when I used to tan in the sun, my knees were always darker than the rest of my body, so I think that having knees spray tanned darker just makes it look more natural.
6. What to use to take the stains off after spray tan.Sometimes, no matter what you do, you still get darker stains. The way to deal with them is to rub them off with exfoliant. If you use exfoliant on top of exfoliating glove, it seems to do a great job of removing spray tan.
7. Removing spray tan altogether. If you had a really dark spray on tan, at the end of its life it might be getting quite patchy, and if it is beyond the stage that can be touched up, you might want to take it off.
Easiest way of removing spray tan is to moisturize your body with baby oil, leave it on for couple of hours, and then have a hot bath, grab one of those exfoliating gloves (or loofah), pour some exfoliating gel onto it and scrub everything off. All gone. Call Liquid Sunshine Tanning for your next session.
