What Is The Best Spray Tan For Pale Skin?
The invite’s in, you’ve got your dress, your makeup booked and now you’re looking at your pale pins next to the colour of your new dress but something is missing.
You’ve guessed it, you need a spray tan booked pronto!
What spray tan can do for you
Complete an outfit; a tan can lift the colour of your outfit. Some colours just don’t look right without a tan e.g pastels, metallic or white.
Creates an even skin tone: Just like makeup, tan evens out blotchy or patchy reddened skin
Like Makeup for the skin: Even light spray tans help conceal varicose veins, blemishes, bruises and cellulite
Slims and tones the body: Have you ever heard the phrase “If you can’t tone it, tan it!”. Skin that’s darker allows less light to bounce off the body, which allows the body to look less round. Dark skin also defines the muscles by creating the illusion of shadow where the muscle begins.
What is the best spray tan brand for pale skin?
At a salon, you can usually pick from a range of shades which usually include light, medium or dark. However, this doesn’t mean that every brand is going to suit your skin tone.
For example, in our spray tan studio, we have 3 brands that we use, but there is one particular brand that we would never give to a pale-skinned individual as it would be too dark for them.
Gold, caramel or olive-based tans are best for very pale individuals, and it’s best to pick the lighter shade on your first time at any salon. Some pasty customers are concerned that light skin doesn’t tan, but that is not true. Certain people with light or darker skin tones will struggle to get the dark colour they want from a spray tan. Although this is rare, we suggest trying out a spray tan before a big event to see how dark you are.
Our Top Picks:
St. Tropez Original £20-£30
Vita Liberata Hawaii £20 – £35
Nouvatan Express for 1-hour max £20 – £25
Our advice for very pale spray tan newbies
- A gold, caramel or olive-based when tanning fair skin
- Don’t pick a red-based fake tan for pale skin
- Book a trial visit and pick the lightest shade and work up from there
- * Check out our recommended caramel/olive-based tan*: Click here
- * Check out our recommended olive/gold-based tan*: Click here
- Check out our tips and advice on preparing: Click here
Why you shouldn’t get too dark a spray tan
If you love being a deep brown but your chalk white, then go for it! However, you need to know the consequences of how it will pan out! It’s a fake tan, so at the end of the day (or should I say a week) it will have faded. So it’s not the end of the world if you’ve picked something too dark.
So Here’s Why:
1: No matter how high quality a false tan brand is, if it’s too dark for your pale complexion, it will fade BADLY. This is called a ‘bad fade off’.
What we mean by ‘fade off’, is when your skin naturally sheds and renews itself, the contrast between your new Casper like skin poking through the extremely dark fake tan will be very noticeable.
This creates what is known as a ‘tiger bread’ like fade off.
2: Good tans ain’t cheap and cheap tans ain’t good! By this, we mean a high-quality fake tan will not be filled with chemicals, alcohol, perfumes and preservatives.
This is a good thing for multiple reasons, but in relation to tanning, these ingredients will also dry out the skin and cause a bad fade-off.
Pick a well-known brand that’s fragrance-free.
3: The contrast between the pale you yesterday and the chocolate you this morning can be quite alarming to some spray tan newbies.
Pick a light or medium colour at max is best for tanning light-skinned individuals, and if you want to go dark, tell your therapist to go easy on your face.
The best dark tan for fair skin in our experience is the luxury brand ‘Vita Liberata’ in the shade ‘Brazil’, or the incredibly natural and long-lasting ‘Nouvatan Olive’ in medium (or dark if you’re brave).