The Ginger Diaries: The wonders of fake tan….

Ahaha! I surprised you all by coming back so soon!! I figured I would wax poetic on something near and dear to my pale, pasty skin: FAKE TAN.

Fake tan is a necessary evil for yours truly. My natural coloring is translucent, so whether it’s a feis or a major, I have to buckle down and tan.


See, I wasn't kidding on the pasty ;)

I often use the wonderful Rimmel SunShimmer product that allows you to rub it on the day of, then wash off. It provides excellent coverage and a nice bronze color, as opposed to oompa loompa orange but as I said earlier, it washes OFF, very easily:




This lovely image was captured the morning of my competition at the All Scotlands last October. I have a habit of sleeping on my stomach with my hands on my thighs, LOL. I had to quickly correct my hand print before I went over to the venue. It's a really good thing that I even noticed at that early hour of the morning. I love Rimmel, but I now save it for the day of competition emergencies instead of the night before.


In addition, my past 3 dresses have had very light linings and my current one is almost entirely white, so I panic about a speck of dust hitting it wrong, let alone a nice orange streak.

My claim to fame is having embarrassing "feis day" white patches, streaks, or even whole back thighs be completely lilly white while the rest of me is "oompa loompa". Thankfully for major competitions, I utilize professional services. Of course, with my luck, I always have a HILARIOUS and somewhat awkward story to go with each tanning experience, so I’ll share two gems.

At the Worlds in Glasgow this year, I found a lovely company who would come to my hotel and give me a spray tan in my room. I, in my infinite wisdom, did not set an alarm the night before the appointment and the only thing that woke me up that morning was the technicians phone call to alert me that she had arrived at the hotel. I kicked out my roomie, still half asleep, and ran down the stairs to catch Susan, the tan lady. As she was setting up shop, she handed me some dark cotton underwear to use so I wouldn’t have to get tanner all over mine when I didn’t have a washer handy. Her next statement both shocked and horrified me: “Ok, I’m ready when you are. Just take your bra off and step into the pop up tent”.

WHAT?!?! Take off my bra and leave it off, in front of you??

I nearly choked on the water I was drinking.

I pleaded “Can’t I leave it on?” but to no avail as she said then I wouldn’t get a perfect tan.

I generally don’t utilize a lot of salon services as Irish Dancing is my personal money drain so I forget that people who work in the personal beauty “biz” are used to seeing people without clothing. It is also my impression that people in the UK might be a tad more open about these types of things.I did survive the experience and Susan did provide a nice dark tan that lasted a full week! She mentioned to me that her husband spray tans her when she wants to go out with her friends, which I thought was pretty cool!

I did end up exceptionally brown. Please reference my top pasty picture, then look at the picture below, and LAUGH! This was before I rinsed off; I call this my "Tahitian Beauty" look:

And I do give the thumbs up to exercise... sometimes.... but it doesn't always make me feel good..


Now we fast forward to the North American Championships in Orlando. I always book with a popular on-site spray tan vendor, who I love. They have great customer service, especially when I e-mailed the owner just few weeks before NAN when he had 95% of his slots booked. I had to add a face and neck tan thanks to my white dress and my fear of getting powder bronzer all over the neckline. He was able to adjust my appointment right on the spot without changing the time.

It was my first time getting a face and neck tanned as opposed to a full body and unlike in Scotland, the tanning technician so kindly let me keep a sports bra on ;) Unfortunately, looking back, that was a bad idea on my part. After I finished competing, it was time to CELEBRATE, for many reasons! I got myself all gussied up and went back to the Dolphin to meet up with some friends.

I should have selected a different shirt, as this look was presented to the world in this picture:


Uh, can we say shockingly hilarious?!?

I'm really surprised my friend Katie (in the green) still wanted to be seen with me with that kind of neckline... Another valuable lesson was learned. It really is better to go with a full spray tan in the summer... or coordinate your outfits to not display your awkward tan line.

So, all my dancer friends out there: Do you have such embarrassing tan problems as yours truly? Am I the only person who has her palms orange while the top of her hands are white the day before the feis?

Until next time, keep treble jiggin' (which I'm not a fan of at the moment, not one BIT!)

Colleen