Scouted/The Daily Beast/Vacation.
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While I think pale, Snow White-like skin is absolutely beautiful, there’s no denying that I enjoy the off-label beauty benefits of a nice sun tan. For me, a nice wash of color kind of doubles as light body makeup, blurring the look of scars, blemishes, and even cellulite. During my reckless teenhood spent mostly on the sandy beaches of North County San Diego, my summer hours consisted of splashing around in the waves and doing everything I could to achieve a nice tan, including using every tanning product on the market, including baby oils and browning lotions. (I did this along with “lightening” my hair using Sun-In to a very unintentional shade of tangerine orange and over-plucking my brows into the shape of little sperm, my biggest beauty regret still to date.) Naturally, in my reckless youth, SPF and protective skincare products were unfortunately not part of my regimen.
As an adult suffering the consequences of this SPF avoidance in my youth, I now resort to UV-free options to get a sunkissed glow, like self-tanner and spray tans, but sometimes I’m too lazy or busy to squeeze these time-consuming treatments in before an event or beach day. Such was the case just the other weekend when my pasty rear-end found itself on a weekend getaway in Miami with my husband and without my confidence-boosting protective armor, also known as Mystic Tan. Fortunately, I had the foresight to pack an advanced sample of Vacation’s new SPF-30-fortified Instant Vacation Browning Lotion (along with the brand’s SPF 30 Baby Oil), which came in a clutch. The buttery yet lightweight lotion is infused with skin-firming natural oils, vitamin E, and a hint of self-tanning technology, earning its moniker ‘Paradise In A Bottle.’