Here comes the sun.....

do do do do..... :)
well, in bottle form anyway... Ladies I give you; THE Body Shop Sheer sun gel (left) and Body and leg shine. (right);

Having a birthday in June you'd think I would be well tanned by now. But oh no no no (Churchill dog just posessed me!). I knew I would not be able to rely on the British Summer to deliver me enough actual sun to get me all golden in time to wear my nude dress on my birthday without looking totally washed out. So I bought these two beauts in the hopes that they would provide me with a glow worthy of braving a short dress without tights. And boy o boy did they deliver!

I love them because they are instant and therefore wash off. (apply at least an hour before dressing if you are wearing light coloured clothing to minimise chances of staining) Best of all, I'd forgotten to exfoliate. (how could you forget that when fake tanning!?-clearly didn't have my thinking cap on!!) I realised this midway through the process so it was too late. I feared terrible patchy-ness But guess what? nadda! It worked a treat.

The sheer sun gel is matt and ideal for the face. But I don't mind a bit of shimmer on my legs so I use the gel for arms and chest etc, and the leg shine on my legs. The leg shine has a bit of subtle shimmer. No, not glitter. Shimmer. The body shop have been the first to my knowlege, to produce a non-matt false tan product, and get it right!

Both of these products actually felt moisturising too wish is a definite bonus for the dry skinned. I noticed the sheer sun gel looked a bit greasy and like it was separating but I just gave the tube a little shake and it mixed through and I found the slightly greay formula actually helped me to wash the staining off my hands.

I do think it's a tad over-priced seeing as my Rimmel instant false tan is almost identical to the sheer sun gel and you get more than twice as much for less than half the price. But then the Rimmel one didn't feel moisturising and if you didn't exfoliate you would notice straight away. I still prefer the Rimmel one because I can always exfoliate and use a good (oil-free) moisturiser before hand and achieve the same result. But TBS is my fix in a flurry emergency false tanner.

The Leg and Body shine is an almost bargain though. I remember Michael Korrs released a leg shine and it was REALLY expensive (maybe 3 times TBS?) so if you look at it from that perspective, when you buy both these together it evens out. (like the way I'm trying to justify this?)

I would definitley recommend these. But if you don't mind exfoliating and moisturising (which let's face it most of us know you should do this anyway esp with any kind of tanning product) the I'd say save your pennies and buy Rimmel's version. it's nearly as good and waaaaaay cheaper,......packaging isn't as pretty though ;P