Hi everyone, for this month’s DIY (do it yourself), I will be sharing how to get a tan without leaving your house. Well I mean you may need to go to Target to buy the tanning stuff. For this DIY, I used a self tanning lotion that I got from Target. Directions: “Smooth on evenly. Allow several minutes to dry prior to dressing. After applications, wash hands thoroughly. Use daily. Color will develop over several days.”

My first day using the project, I decided I wanted rapid results, so I used almost the entire bottle. I found out later on that I was supposed to use a little bit of the lotion to get a gradual even tan. The next day,  I noticed that the lotion indeed works, but since I didn’t follow the directions at all, I found myself with bright orange palms and fingers the color of a ripe pumpkin. Apparently you’re supposed to wash the lotion off your hands. I wasn’t the only one to notice either, I had peers tell me that I looked like an “umpa lumpa” and a “carrot.” Luckily it’s almost impossible to offend me, and I’ve learned to just laugh off the embarrassment. Let me tell you that using the lotion my way was a big mistake. More so than the time in middle school when I thought that colored mascara would look great with my eyeshadow all the way up to my eyebrows. I ended up having bright white patches where I missed spots including my knee caps, elbows and parts of my arms. After the first day, I decided to use the lotion multiple times a day to get even more results and get rid of the white patches, and after another two days, I bought the shade darker to define my tan even more. I soon became a shade of unnatural orange, and it definitely was  pretty obvious that I had a fake-tan. Lucky for me, I got to go on a t

When I got back from my trip, I found out, through selfies I took in the Big Apple, that my tan wasn’t the same color as my face makeup, so I bought a new foundation to match. Not two days later did my tan start to get patchy and not just in places you can hide it, but literally everywhere including my neck. It looked terrible, but at least I could cover some of it up with the foundation I just bought. It seems like every year there’s something that goes wrong with my tan. Last year, I fell asleep in the sun for 6 hours without turning over, so I looked like a lobster in the front and a ghost on the back. At least it turned into a tan though a couple weeks later. There’s nothing I can do about my patchiness this year, which is the worst case scenario.

I was not only disappointed, but embarrassed as well because the tan won’t just come off with a sugar scrub. It has to wear off on it’s own which means that I will be nice and patchy on my vacation to Florida in a week. My purpose for using the product was to get a base tan so that I wouldn’t get a sunburn on my vacation. If I had read the directions it clearly reads, “This product does not contain sunscreen and does not protect against sunburn.” I can’t really blame anyone but myself on this one because it was completely my own fault. I have learned my lesson with reading labels on skincare items. I’m still kind of lazy though, so I don’t think reading directions on everything is really all that necessary.

Overall, I don’t have a problem with this product, and  I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars because the color it gave me was more of an orange than a tan. I think as long as you read the directions this product is great to give you a summer base tan, and hopefully not a patchy mess like me!