The bronzing drop effect

...or, the summer I stopped embracing being pale (jk, kinda)

I’ve never had a problem with my ghostly pallor, so to speak.

Since I dyed my hair red in 2016, I’ve always joked that I could pass for Irish instead of Jewish, given my blue eyes and super-pale skin. And over the years, I’ve ignored hundreds of invites for spray tans (I’m sorry).

But in May, right before my birthday, I was alerted that a certain spray tan chain (you know the one) was opening a new location and invited to come in. I didn’t reply to the email til a co-worker sent it my way and said “you interested?” and I thought, essentially, “what the hell,” and decided to get bronzed before I turned 33.

It was…alright. The spray tan pooled in between my boobs in an icky way but the way my legs looked was…undeniable. There’s a reason so many people get spray tans, I learned, or at least was reminded…decades after everyone else.

Since then, I’ve had another spray tan, this time with St. Tropez’s expert, Sophie, a woman known to every beauty editor in NYC.

Sophie advised me to maintain my bronzed glow with St. Tropez’s face mist and, surprising even myself, I have.

I’ve talked about this before but I’m often influenced by my own reporting (l o l) and so, for example, when I reported, earlier this week, on Sivan Ayla’s Lux Unfiltered’s upcoming Sephora debut, I decided to finally put her products to the test — I will report back on this note, but quick aside to tell you that I do vouch for the brand — the neroli-scented hand soap is to die for.

Anyway — perhaps even more surprising, to me, perhaps has been the makeup of it all.