Go Tan Using Sunless Towlettes by Estee Lauder

I have very light skin. This has been an on-going source of consternation my whole life. I can tan in the sun, but only after a harsh burn first. Living in Florida this was not a problem since the tan could be maintained forever without going through that initial skin-killing burn every summer. But I'm not always in Florida, nor will I be having moved to Sweden recently. So what's the solution then? I was hoping that these Go Tan Sunless Towlettes by Estee Lauder would be. Nope. Back to the drawing board...

I first purchased this set of 10 Sunless Towlettes as part of a sunning promotion last spring. Buy all this sunning stuff and get the free cool orange beach bag. I'm a sucker for free. The package by itself runs about $28 at Macys. For that price these things shoulda lasted decades, eh?

Estee Lauder sez: Incredibly easy, incredibly even

They got the easy part right. Of all the products I've used over the years, these towlettes were the simplest to apply by far.

1. First, exfoliate. Smooth skin helps the color develop more evenly and last longer. Check. I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes to exfoliate. I have individual exfoliating cremes for just about every body part. I know, I'm sick.

2. Sweep towelette over legs, arms, body, even tan lines, unfolding as you go. Go lightly on areas where color can develop darker, such as knees, ankles and elbows. Yup. Just open up one of the individually wrapped foil packets, unfold that there Got Tan Sunless Toilette and wipe it all over your legs, arms, whatever. One managed to do both arms and both legs on me.

3. Immediately wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water. DUH! Unless, of course, you just really, really like that orange palm look...

Now sit there nekkid for about 30 minutes. (helpful hint: Make sure you haven't scheduled any plumbers to come in before you do this... ahem)

Your gorgeous new "tan" starts to appear in less than an hour. That's about right. I could begin to see color after the 30 min, and it darkened as the day wore on to what I would term about a medium bronze-ish/orange.

They claimed: streak-free, golden, radiantly natural-looking.

I say ehhhh sorta. The first time I used it I did not notice any streaking. The next 4 times though, I did notice it. It wasn't harshly bad, mind you, but you could see it if you were looking for it specifically.

Golden? Yeah yeah mainly it was.. but there was still that slight bit of orange tint hidden in there. I say these have less orange than most self-tanning products though, so they did pretty good on this score. I'll go so far as to say the color is damn good for evening use... but natural-looking? Not in the daylight.

The main down-side though is really the lastability quotient. This tan will only stay with you an average of about 2 showers. Luckily, it doesn't flake off though, it wears off evenly.

Tanning products have come a long way since my days as a teen (lets just say over 30 years ago), but they still haven't got it perfected yet. I'm going with 3 stars for this one, and telling you up front that this 3 stars is high for me where self-tanners are concerned.

I do not at this time recommend you use any of them, but if you have a hot date and wanna give some extra tinge to your legs for the evening, then Go Tan Sunless Towlettes is probably your best product. Take that for what it's worth.