Kate Shoulders and Conan Shins

The problem with approximating a Kate Hudson tan, for me, is the Conan O'Brien skin underneath. There comes a point when everything starts to revert—splotchily.

Last weekend I put on a new self-tanner: easy. No weird copper-penny smell or stickiness or pilling up. By midday the color started coming in—a warm, honeyish gold. Days 2 and 3, more of the same: incredibly even, golden, perfect. Kate from sunup to sundown. I wore V-necks, boatnecks, floaty short-sleeved things that rightfully should have waited another three months. Delightful.

But then Tuesday came: subtle, ominous, small-but-significant patches of truly glaring paleness. All self-tanner is bound to have a half-life, at which point you can reapply (risking splotchiness, tanorexia, etc.), or scrub the tan away. I chose the scrub, but 10 abrasive minutes later, I looked the same: Patches O'Brien. Maybe my skin has a particularly tenacious affinity for the tanning agents, who knows. In any case, there has to be a way to do this better. Some middle ground. Some way to a graceful fade ...

—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor