Farmer’s Tan
Sister: Oh my gosh, your upper arm is so sunburned it’s swollen!
Me: No, that’s just my arm fat.
Sister: No, look at this band of skin. It’s swollen!
Me: No, seriously, it’s just arm fat. It’s, um, a bit thicker there, you see.
Sister: Oh!
I had just gotten home from a long day at the beach, and while my t-shirt had done it’s job and protected my shoulders, my lower arms and chest were bright red. I couldn’t feel any pain yet, but I could tell by looking in the mirror that I was up shit creek. Besides the pain that I knew was on the way, I had a big conference to go to in a few weeks and a Farmer’s Tan wasn’t exactly the look I was going for.
Sure enough, one week later I was sporting dark brown arms that abruptly ended about six inches below my shoulders, where my blindingly white Irish coloring took over. It was so bad, I came downstairs in my white bra, and my husband didn’t notice I was shirtless until he gave me a hug and felt skin under his hand.
I had just found a really awsome maxi dress to wear to the conference, and my husband’s laughter made it pretty clear I was going to have to do something about my multi-colored arms. Besides the whole farmer’s tan issue, white fat is much less attractive than tan fat; I needed to even that shit out.
I knew I couldn’t go the self tanner route because BEEN THERE, DONE THAT with disastrous results, so I decided it’d be best to get a Mystic tan.
First, do not wait until the day before a big event to get spray tanned. There just won’t be enough time to fix any issues that arise. Like turning to look at something behind you and sticking your chin to your shoulder, transferring all the tanner to your neck and turning yourself from one golden color to three.
You will sweat while trying to pack and wrangle kids and keep the house somewhat clean, and that sweat will smear dye in weird patterns around your body, removing color all-together from your creases, crooks and crannies.
You also won’t have time to wash your sheets, which have turned brown from your skin rubbing against them, when you get up in the morning and are frantically throwing all the last minute stuff into you suitcase before taking off. You’ll get home after four days and crawl into bed, only to discover that your husband apparently didn’t have the time to change the sheets, either.
Second, don’t wear underwear with holes in them if you are going to have someone do the spraying manually. That is, if you want to keep your undies on.
Salontress: Okay, I’ll leave and you can strip down.
Me: Strip? You mean, get naked?
Salontress: Well, yes!
Me: Oh! I just want to get my upper body done. So should I just pull down my straps?
Salontress: Hon, if you do this, you’re gonna want to do this right!
Me: Oh. So, just to clarify, completely naked? It’s just, well, I don’t think I’m ready to share that much fat with you.
Salontress: Fine, you can leave your undergarments on, but they are going to get browned. Hon, I have seen myself all sorts of bodies, so don’t you fret.
She may have seen all sorts of bodies, but I doubt she’s seen holey granny panties and a sweat soaked bra. I kept my skivvies on, holes and all, and marked off one more salon I can never go to again.
So if you are at BlogHer and see me, please come say hi even though I look like I have a skin disease.
