Like many girls in England, I was not blessed with naturally sunkissed skin. I am not a huge fan of sunbeds so I tend to reach for false tan, mostly for nights out and special occasions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that being pale is a bad thing. I know plenty of girls who much prefer the way they look when their skin is pale and they never touch false tan. My personal preference is just to use it for nights out as I feel much more confident and I just feel like I look a lot healthier with a tan! It is not doing my health any harm and I only use it every now and again, making sure I exfoliate thoroughly when I want to get rid of it.

I have tried many different types of false tan over the years including some expensive and some cheap. I find St Tropez to be totally overrated and I find it’s budget alternative, St Moriz to be absolutely amazing. For a fraction of the price, the brand name doesn’t put me off at all. So a couple of weeks ago, I ran out of my beloved St Moriz so I made the decision to try an old favourite, Fake Bake’s Flawless Self Tan Liquid only to find that there was none in stock. Stood proudly beside the Fake Bake range on the shelf in Boots, was the Utan range by Ultimo. This is a brand I have heard of but I never knew they did false tan so I was definitely intrigued to see what this was like.

 

I decided to choose the shade ‘Dark- Ibiza Extreme’ because in my experience, even the darkest false tans are never that dark. So I went ahead and bought this colour which ended up being pretty perfect. This is what Boots has to say about it “Choose Utan Ibiza Extreme for an instant silky smooth deep bronze tint upon application as the deeper, intense colour develops over 3-4 hours. Utan is the fake tan range from the people who bought you Ultimo lingerie.” This product also claims to have body sculpting technology which I was dubious about from the start (and rightfully so).

So, onto the review.

How did it smell?

To me it smelt like 90% of other fake tans which to me isn’t unpleasant at all, it’s just very distinctive. I wouldn’t be put off buying this again due to the smell as it doesn’t bother me at all.

Was there a colour guard?

There was indeed a colour guard and I’ll be honest with you, it’s a little scary. When you first apply this, it has a green tinge to it which I was instantly worried about and dreaded seeing the colour after it had developed. Below is a picture of my sister before she applied the tan and afterwards. I think the bathroom lighting is very complementary given that it looked so green in real life.

 

Is it sticky?

I normally apply fake tan the night before I am due to go out so I can leave it a good 8 hours for it develop overnight. I have used some fake tans which have claimed to develop over 4 hours and they have completely washed off as soon as I step in the shower, even after waiting the 4 hours. There was a little bit of stickiness but nothing unbearable. If you’re going to apply this before bed time, I would give it an hour before getting in bed just to let it dry and settle a bit first.

Did it transfer onto clothes/bed sheets?

When I woke up in the morning, I did find that a small amount of the tan had transferred onto my pillow but not too much. There was none on my pyjamas and my other bed sheets seemed fine too.

How was the colour once it had developed?

I forgot to take a picture when I woke up but once I had showered and got ready, this was the finished result

How long did it last?

One thing I will say about this tan is that, it took some real scrubbing to get this off. And I actually really liked that about it. I hate when tan starts to wear off and you look all patchy but I didn’t have that with this, it wore off evenly until I took to it with a loofa and some exfoliating scrub.

Overall, I would give this product a 4.5/5 which is a pretty good rating! I bought this for around £22 I think it was but it is now on Boots website for £28.50 for 200ml which I think is actually a pretty big jump. I like the colour this ended up being and nothing about it put me off using it again so I would recommend this!

Thanks for reading!

Bea x