Should I Exfoliate Before Tanning?

Do I Need to Exfoliate Prior to Self Tanning?

When applying fake tan, it's important you fully prepare your skin in order to get the best possible results from your fake tan. This article runs through the reasons why you should always exfoliate before fake tanning.

So you've bought yourself some fake tan, you've slapped it on with ZERO preparation in a rush, and now it's all streaky and patchy. Well what did you expect? Like so many things in life - preparation is key. You should always prepare the skin for fake tanning, and by this we mean exfoliate. Use a good really gritty scrub - such as our own For All My Eternity Body Buffer - to scrub and buff away all that dead skin sitting on top first. This dead skin flakes off naturally anyway, but if you've just tanned it and then it flakes off you're going to be left with a lighter bit of skin below - creating that tell-tale patchy look.

By exfoliating well prior to self tanning, all this dead skin is taken clean off in the shower, leaving a nice fresh layer of skin ready to apply your self tan onto. This will now mean your tan will go on more easily, it will appear a lot more even, and also fade evenly. It's so easy to exfoliate too - just do it whilst you're showering, then dry yourself down and apply the self tanner straight away to dry skin for the best results.

Top Tip
You can also exfoliate gently every other day to help your tan fade more evenly over the course of 5-7 days. Of course, you may prefer to keep your tan going, in which case regularly exfoliating simply ensures you're always tanning the top and freshest layer of your skin which will result in a lovely even-looking tan every time.