The importance of being a good scrubber. (Tan Towel)

Member Name: ADBoyce

Product:	Tan Towel
Date:	28/06/02 (4380 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Easy to apply.

Disadvantages: End results aren't great, Stains your hands more than anything else.

Yesterday I walked into Boots on a mission. Now if acting suspicious were an arrestable offence the boys in blue would have nicked me ages ago. The whole purpose was to get hold of one of these little foil packets as quickly and with as little embarrassment as possible. Being a bloke I didn't want to be spotted walking around Boots with self-tan products in my basket and so I thought it would be as simple as walking in, lifting something off the shelf, paying for it and leaving. How wrong was I?

An entire aisle of Boots had been taken up with sun creams, tan makeup and self-tan products. I thought it would have been simple, sun cream, after sun and of course the thing I was looking for, self-tan. Oh no, they had every brand you could name, every consistency, every type - they had it. I'm no expert on tanning products - I only wanted to take the white look off my face (someone told me I looked ill - argh!) and in my naivety thought it would be a simple case of lifting a self-tan cream off the shelf. Neither did I think they would be photographing screaming children for some bonny baby competition next to the sun care products.

Anyway, how I came across the Tan Towel was from some background knowledge of it on a site called lookfantastic.com. They seemed to hail it as a revolution in self-tan products and as it seemed easy to use I thought it would do no harm to try it out. What was better still was the special offer in Boots - it had been reduced from £1.49 to just 99p - a snip I thought especially if it would get rid of my milk bottle look. The little foil wrapped towel would be my saving grace in the modern sunlight and save me the embarrassment of going pink in natural sunlight (as I so often do) and staying ghastly white in the shade. Ok you get the drift?

Tan Towels aren't exactly towels - more towelettes. A bit like those lemon-scented tissues you get in KFC to wipe away the grease of your finger licked chicken. Approxima
tely the same size, the Tan Towel comes wrapped in a snazzy foil packet to keep the product fresh and clean and this naturally prevents it drying out. The towel itself is the size of a baby wipe and is soaked in self-tan. A bit like a piece of kitchen towel soaked in self-tan spray really. Simple eh? The towel itself is strong which is a bonus if you have hairy arms like me as you can be reassured it wont catch and tear easily.

The beauty (excuse the pun) of the Tan Towel lies in its application. As I said, I'm no expert on beauty products but I do know two things. One, you shouldn't apply too much self-tan product on your knees and elbows and two; you have to apply it evenly to stop it streaking. As I'm not the sort of person akin to streaking in public that's exactly what I didn't want and thus the Tan Towel would be my ideal product since it guaranteed no streaking. As the towel is saturated in product, coating your skin with a tissue rather than your hand ensures an even coating and thus prevents streaks that make you look like a freshly sliced baguette. Ok so I couldn't think of a better way to describe it! The great thing too is that you can never use too much product as it's already measured out for you in the towel.

Ah the things I do in the name of research! First thing's first when it comes to self-tanning: exfoliation. Ok so I know three things about this kind of thing but getting rid of dead skin cells is a must. You want to be applying product to fresh skin, not the type that's going to flake off and make you look like a bread and butter pudding, or worse a spotted dick. So into the shower I went with my bottle of The Sanctuary Body Scrub and scrubbed from top to bottom. By the time I was finished there must have been more me down the plughole than there was in the shower itself. Great - I was ready for tanning from top to toe.

Opening the little foil packet you come across the hallowed towe
l and see that it's neatly folded and ready to go. It's best to unfold it before you use it if you want to get the best application and that's exactly what I did. Hardly rocket science as you can imagine, but when you are a bloke it's the finer details like these that tend to get overlooked. The first place to receive the Tan Towel treatment was my arms. Skinny as they are, I was able to wrap the towel around them and give them the once over, bathing them in this golden liquid. (It's clear on application but when it dries that's what colour you go - still with me?) Next up was my face and neck area as these are obviously the areas that get most exposure. On contact with the towel my face went bright red and the nightmare it seemed had happened. My super sensitive skin appeared to have sparked a chemical reaction and I was turning pink. Actually it looked as though I was burning in the midday sun rather than applying self-tan and I thought to myself I must have been getting the authentic treatment. In the end my skin was fine and there's been no actual adverse reaction.

According to the wrapper your new found tan will mature after around three hours and so it was off to bed a milk bottle to rise in the morning as a bar of gold. First thing this morning I was in the bathroom to stare at my face for five minutes and look at the actual effect - it had worked but seemingly more on my hands than anywhere else. They were orange! My face and arms to be honest didn't look much different and I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed in the results. Add to the fact I have bright orange hands and I feel like screaming for my money back. Think the perma-tan look of Robert Kilroy Silk, David Dickinson and Judith Chalmers and you can imagine what my hands look like. So a word of advice that's not included in the instructions, always wear a pair of gloves when using these little towels.

Tan Towels are a patented innovation and
at 99p each they aren't going to stretch to an entire body tan. After applying one to my face, neck and arms it had dried out and if you want an all over tan I recommend you buy at least three or four. The end result will depend on your own skin tones but fair skinned people like myself be warned - this will take several applications if you want a brown, just back from Spain, look. If you want a deeper tan it does state that you should apply another towel three hours after the original application.

I imagine these little foil packets might be as essential to a woman's handbag as condoms are to a bloke's back pocket. They appear more of a quick solution than an actual treatment and in my ignorance this was something I became confused with. Perhaps I should have purchased a more upmarket product, the likes of Piz Buin, Soltan or Ambre Solaire. The good news too is that the towel itself doesn't smell that badly, unlike some self-tan products you may have come across. Despite the claims on the wrapper it does smell of self-tan and it is noticeable but it's not going to put you off using it. You might like to be made aware that you can happily moisturise after applying it. Personally I just went to bed.

If it matters to you the product itself is manufactured in Las Vegas, USA and distributed by Tan Towel Europe based in Flintshire. Ingredients appear double dutch to me and so I wont bore you with the minor details. One thing you can rest assured of is that none of the ingredients are organic - all are chemical based which might put some people off. They do have a website that's devoted to facts on the product itself, how to achieve perfect results and even facts on skin cancer. According to the site an Australian developed the Tan Towel, which is somewhat funny for me. Given all that sunshine I would have thought they'd be the last nationality to come up with a product like this!

Tan Towels as far as I am aware are a
vailable in Boots, Superdrug and other leading pharmacy and beauty stores. They are also available in larger quantities from online stores such as lookfantastic.com. (I don't work for them in case you are wondering). Other products in the range include exfoliating products and a multipack of towels for more regular applications. Prices range from 99p to £13.99.

Sadly for me the Tan Towel look will be with me for the next three days, which demonstrates that it really is a quick solution. Unfortunately my orange hues make my hands look as though I've had a fight in an orange grove and no matter how much I wash my hands it remains as strong as ever. Next time I fancy a tan I think I'll stick to drinking orange juice. I'm sure I could have achieved the same results and after all, it's the kind of things us blokes do in the name of beauty innit?

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