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
Obviously you would not want to try this everywhere, but Nair takes self tanner off pretty quickly.
Helpful on legs.
also, the build-a-tan type products, which gradually build up color over several days, are brilliantly fool proof!
Try a self tanner remover when the Patches O'Brian day has arrived. Try:
http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P57006&cm_mmc%3dus_search-_-YA-_-br%20sttro-_-self%20tanner%20remover
I also use the remover on my hands when they get Lohan Orange.