Review | Vita Liberata Self Tan* vs Cocoa Brown Selft Tan*

It’s March, the sun has finally made a proper appearance and I am beginning to feel incredibly pale. I’ve never been one to dabble in the huge market that is Fake Tan, but I’m thinking it’s about time. My hair has just been dyed darker and against my fairy tale white skin I really am beginning to look like Snow White -except not the all singing princess in the original – think more Lily Collins in ‘Mirror Mirror’, big brows and all.

A couple of months ago I was generously sent a bottle of Vita Liberata Moment by Moment Tinted Self Tan Mousse* but I was just too scared to go anywhere near the stuff. I just never saw the point in fake tanning and especially around Christmas. Winter is for not having to shave your legs and for hiding all of your paleness under leggings and big woolly jumpers – no room for fake tan there. But now that the sun has decided to make an appearance and my new hair do has left me looking whiter than white, I thought it was about time to give tanning a whirl. Somehow, over the months since receiving that first bottle of fake tan I’ve managed to acquire a drawer full of tanning lotions and potions. The two I’ve tried so far have been ‘Vita Liberata Moment by Moment Tinted Self Tan Mousse’* and ‘Cocoa Brown 1 Hour Tan Mousse’*, both of which claim to give you a flawless golden glow within 1-3 hours of application and I have to say, I’ve had mixed reviews. 

Vita Liberata Moment by Moment Tinted Self Tan Mousse* – buy here £24.50

I’ve heard a lot about this brand and have heard a lot of positive comments about their tans, So naturally (when I was over my fear of tanning products) I was excited to trial it and see the golden results for myself. This tan claims to start developing 30 minutes after application and you choose your own colouring by choosing when you shower. To a self tan virgin it sounded like a brilliant idea and with the help of my older sister (the self tan pro that she is) I was taught how to apply the mousse. Thirty minutes (and lots of complaints from Teresa about the packaging later) and I look like I’ve just been sat in the sun in Barbados for a good couple of hours and then rolled around in some dirt. Not the best analogy, but it’s what I felt like. 

Scared to leave it on too long and risk looking orange or too dark, I left it an hour before showering it off. This is where the major disappointment comes in. I got out of the shower the exact same shade of pale that I was before applying any of the tan. How did I know? The proof was in the non existent tan lines… I was so annoyed that I’d wasted so much time and effort on it… 

The second disappointing thing about this bottle was the packaging. As I said above, my sister couldn’t find a good word to say about it apart from the fact that the bottle is sleek and impressive looking (do they count as good adjectives?!). The pump is slow and doesn’t make a very good effort at pumping much product out at all. It also comes out quite airy and has lots of air bubbles in – not something you’d expect from a Mousse. It made a massive mess and would leak everywhere even when it wasn’t being used (cue an annoyed father yelling at me for brown tan blobs on my cream carpet – sorry dad). The mitt that I was sent was also a bit of a disappointment, Teresa has used a lot of different ones in the past and mentioned that it soaks up a lot of the tanning product – again this isn’t something you want out of a tanning mitt. Overall I was very disappointed with this product and honestly, I’m not too keen on using it again. But I’m determined to see the great in it that others see so I’m going to be giving it a second chance soon! I just might be leaving it on for a little longer!

Cocoa Brown 1 Hour Instant Tan by Marissa Carter* – buy here £7.99

This is a brand that I’d never heard much about before becoming a beauty blogger, but is one that I’ve always secretly wanted to get my hands on and give a go. I think it might be because it comes in the cutest pink packaging though, I’m not going to lie. I was lucky enough to be given it in a goody bag from the #BrizBlogMeet that was organised by the lovely Emily (blog); somebody had obviously heard my wishes! After my first attempt with a ‘shower when you want’ kind of tan, I was a bit skeptical when I found that this tan was also the same. Nevertheless, I grabbed myself a new mitt (a St Moriz one from Wilkinsons for £3) and started applying with the help of my younger sister, Holly. It applied really nicely and the bottle’s pressurised feature was a lot better than the pump on Vita Liberata. The product came out a lot better too, with a much smoother bubble of mousse and no air bubbles in sight! It also was a lot cleaner than the Vita Liberata bottle and unlike that one, didn’t make a mess at all and left my dad happy that he didn’t have to deep clean my carpet again. I was thoroughly impressed with the packaging as it just made every thing else so much easier. 

Just like before, to decide on what colouring you wanted you had to decide how long you wanted to leave it on for. After my mess up last time I thought it would be best to leave it on for a good two hours and see how that worked with this tan. Again, when I showered and stepped out I was a little disappointed, the colour pay off hadn’t been what I’d wanted at all – but hey, at least this time I had tan lines! I now had a lightly browned skin and it looked natural, result?! However, A sleep later and the colour had developed really nicely and I’m actually really impressed with the nice tan I now have – minus my novice streaky marks on my legs! Good job it’s still too cold to whack the pins out without tights! I definitely prefer this self tan to the other and I’ll definitely be trying this out again! 

I have mixed emotions on self tanning now, but am determined to find the right tan for me. Have you found any great self tan?

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