I Don't Learn

My natural skin color is ghastly white. Living in a state that sees winter nine months out of the year, it usually doesn't bother me. However, we're now into spring, the season of cute shorts and dresses that depresses me because my legs are too pasty to bare away from the comfort of my home. Well, the other day, my boyfriend's sister recommended a self-tanning product to me. She swore it's better than the others on the market, even subtle enough that nobody could tell it was fake. Immediately I recalled the one time, way back in junior high, I used such a product. It was orange. It was simultaneously spotted and streaky. It didn't match my face. It was completely unnatural. But, you know, Bridget is a friend, I trust her, and she's damn near as white as I am and feels my pain, so I went for it.

I brought the stuff home from Target yesterday and hemmed and hawed a little, not completely sure I should go for it. I stood in the bathroom, reading the package repeatedly before I sprayed a small amount of the white foam into my hand and rubbed it onto my stomach. I sat around, waited for 10 minutes for it to dry and was crushed to see that my stomach looked just as white as it had when I woke up that morning. I actually expected immediate results (dumb!), and when I didn't get them, I applied some more (dumber!).

After the second application, I still saw no results so I figured, what the hell, I might as well put it on my legs. It doesn't work anyway. So, I bathed and shaved, applied some lotion, and then slathered this crap all over my legs. Again, I waited for it to dry before whining to Chuck that my legs looked exactly the same as before.

Needless to say, I went to bed disappointed. As anyone who's ever used one of these fake tanning products can probably guess, I woke up even more disappointed. It worked after all! My legs look AWFUL.

The best part of the experience: Realizing, while at work this morning, while wearing a short-sleeved shirt, that I must have rested my arms on my legs before they were completely dry. Very cute.

The worst part of the experience: I can't wait until this goes away so I can try again.

The package says it will fade in the same amount of time as a real tan. Maybe somebody out there can tell me how long it takes for a real tan to fade?