Fake isn't always great

Most people don't know that I'm not a born and bred Colorado chica. No, I was actually born in Oklahoma. Yee haw. Not a horrible place to live...if you like heat, humidity and tornadoes on a daily basis. Then yeah, it's your place! But while Oklahoma may not be my cup of tea now, we did have a pool in our backyard and we all used that thing like it was going out of style. So while I was perfecting my cannonballs and Olympic-esque backstroke (um, yeah right), I was also getting extremely tan. So tan in fact that my mom thought I was naturally darker complected than my super fair, blond haired cherubesque younger brother. This thought lasted until we moved to Colorado where there was snow of all things and no pool in the backyard. **Little note for the non-Coloradoans...pools in backyards here are very uncommon. Well, this meant that my tan started fading and my mom then realized I was truly the pasty Irish-English child I wasn't meant to be. Or as she put it, "as pale as a blade of grass that's been under a board all winter." Great.

Jump forward to summer of 2010. Prior to heading to the east coast to work with the hubs, I'd been going to a salon to get weekly spray tans. Call me vain if you want but I like to be tan. I personally feel better about myself...so there. I wish I could say that I'm confident in my pasty self but I'm not. So while Denver had a bevy of spray tan salons, northeastern Pennsylvania did not. And the one that I did hunt down had no idea what she was doing and sprayed my feet a color that was more akin to Michael Jackson pre 15 dozen surgeries. So I bit the bullet and went to an actual tanning place. I was totally breaking my own cardinal rule of no tanning beds after having a bout with skin cancer on my leg that left a scar similar to being gnawed on by a dog. But I was only going to go a few times just to get a good base and then I'd be good! Which is true. But one problem.......my legs flat out refused to get any color. They wouldn't budge from their pasty Irish-English roots. That's what I was most interested in getting tan anyhow! Sure, my stomach was pretty dark but it's not like I walk around rocking crop tops so it was a bit of a waste. I bought 2 different kinds of tanning lotions guaranteed to tan the "hard to tan" areas. Mmmm hmmm. Nada. Zilch.

What's a girl to do? It was time for plan D in the form of self tanner lotion. I wasn't expecting any miracles given my past disappointing experiences with them but this time, oh this time I found me a winner! The Banana Boat Summer Color must have changed their formula since I used it last because it rocks. My legs were "just got back from 3 months in Cabo" dark after just one application. And no streaks! Yes, it's an odd combo but I'm gonna roll with it.

In my "research" for this post, I came across some images of folks that may have abused the tanning a little bit. Maybe. Just a little bit. But hey, what do I know?!?