Tips and Tricks to Remove Self Tanner

Sunless tanning is an adventure in beauty treatments because you never know what you are going to end up looking like. Self tanning can have very different results on every single person's skin, and it doesn't just rely on the tanner, but your skin plays an important role in how well the tanner takes. Removing self tanner when things have gone wrong can be done, but there are a couple products and tips that make the job easier.

Self tanner is absorbed only by the first layer of your skin, which is why it is very temporary and fades after just a couple of days. Because of the way your skin absorbs tanner it is not always possible to remove all of the color, especially immediately after you first apply it, but exfoliating is the quickest and easiest way to get the job done.

If you have applied too much self tanner and need to reduce the appearance of your tan, or your tanner applied with too much orange color to it, here are a couple products and tips to help you remove your self tanner at home.

Exfoliation is the best way to both apply and remove self tanner from your skin. If you have already exfoliated prior to self tanning, this process might not work as well, because you have removed the dead skin cells that also make up the first layer of your skin. If not, use a body exfoliator like Dove Exfoliating Body Wash ($5, drugstores everywhere) that can be applied to the entire body, or at least where the self tanner has been applied.

Take a long hot shower, or bath, that will allow your skin to soften up and exfoliate better once you start scrubbing. A loofah or natural sponge is one of the best items you can keep in your bathtub to help you scrub off old skin and keep soft skin at the surface everyday. Use the loofah to scrub down your skin, not too hard, and remove as much of the self tanner as possible.

Sugar scrubs are another easy way to exfoliate your skin and remove self tanner that is not the color you want. A great body scrub that I have used when my self tanner went on too streaky or uneven is Jo Malone Vitamin E Body Treatment Scrub ($75, jomalone.com). After soaking in the bathtub for fifteen to twenty minutes use a washcloth to scrub the body treatment gently over the area that you want to remove the self tanner from. This treatment should only be done once every three to four days, so if enough of the tanner does not disappear you will need to wait before trying again.

Finally, one of the cheapest and product free ways to remove self tanning color from your skin is with the use of lemons or lemon juice. This method can be done one of two ways, but both require plenty of lemons or lemon juice. Use a washcloth dipped in lemon juice that you rub into your skin to remove the color. Otherwise, jump in the shower with several lemon wedges that you can apply to your skin and rub in to help remove the color as fast as possible.