A Just A Little Bit Orange Feature. By Clara Pettitt. Copyright © 04/28/2002. All Rights Reserved.

How to Get Your Sunless Tan Off Safely and Quickly

Perhaps you put on a sunless tanner by accident, thinking it was sun screen, leaving your whole body a mass of swirls. Maybe you've got terrible orange hands or feet.

Whatever happened, you are embarrassed and in a hurry to do something about it. Slow down!

Even if you do nothing, a sunless tan will go away on its own in just a couple of days. You may feel an urge to scrub your skin until it's raw, but don't.

You are orange right now, but so what? If this is the worst thing that has ever happened to you, count yourself lucky.

It's healthiest for your skin to allow the sunless tan to slough off naturally. It's just your outermost layer of skin that is "tanned," and this layer sheds thousands of particles a second without your assistance.

If someone gives you a funny look, say with a straight face, "Sunless tanning accident." Say it as somberly as you would announce measles or a broken ankle, and you'll get a laugh every time.

Great, you are thinking, just great. I've got orange hands and a job interview tomorrow and she's advising cracking jokes?

Allrighty, here's the deal. How you take the tan off depends on where it is. The way to take your tan off the tough skin of your feet is entirely different from the way you remove a sunless tan from the delicate neck area.

So let's go over it body part by body part, starting at the top and working our way down to your toes.

Your face and/or neck is orange or blotchy
If your face or neck is orange or blotchy, relax. A sunless tan doesn't last long on the face and neck. Within 24 hours, your sunless tan will be a whole new unorangey animal, even if you do nothing.

To get rid of blotchiness, baking soda is your friend. Get damp in the shower, and massage dry baking soda onto your damp skin, rubbing in small, gentle circles. This will gently take off any dead skin that is ready to come off. Usually just one baking soda scrub will leave everything looking even and less orange.

If you don't have blotchiness, just a color that looks unnatural, wipe your face and neck with cotton pads moistened with alcohol free toner or liquid makeup remover. If you are lucky enough to have an AHA or BHA product such as Paula's Choice 2% Beta Hydroxy Acid Solution on hand, you are saved! This product will also eliminate blotchiness. Apply just once before going to bed and you should see improvement in the morning.

Hands and feet
If it is just the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet that are a problem, you have a friend: body hair bleach. Try Sally Hansen's. Mix it up and apply to the stained areas. Leave on for ten minutes, then wash off.

For tenderer areas, such as ankles, wrists, and knees, wipe on 2% BHA lotion from Paula's Choice. Didn't have the foresight to buy that? Then try ordinary hydrogen peroxide from your First Aid kit. If it's more than six months old, get a new bottle. The old stuff won't do much.

This can irritate skin, so test on a small area first. It may not work instantly, but if you apply it once a day to SMALL areas, it will help lighten the tan much more quickly, cutting down orange palm syndrome from an unhappy week to a much more bearable couple of days.

Another alternative: Emily would like you to know that products such as Orange Goop, used by car mechanics to get stains off hands, will remove orange stains from sunless tanners. Use only on your hands — products like this are not recommended for use on large areas of the body. They are most effective on callused areas, such as hands and feet.

Whatever you use, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, body hair bleach: there can be only one! Do not attempt to use multiple products to remove a sunless tanner from your skin, or your skin is going to get extremely irritated.

Note: In May of 2002, Paula Begoun issued a warning against using hydrogen peroxide as a disinfectant for acne prone skin. Hydrogen peroxide, long known as a killer of bacteria, is now thought to harm skin through free radical damage.

Under no circumstances should hydrogen peroxide be applied to large areas of the body.

Fingernails and toenails
A tip from Catherine Zeta Jones Douglas, or whatever her name is these days: denture cleaner gets your nails white. Soak those orange fingertips in Polident. This is a little difficult to do with toes, which are hard to get into a glass. Body hair bleach works well on stained toenails and cuticles.

Underarms
It's easy to get a weird looking ring around the underarm, not surprising considering the poor things get shaved and deodorized constantly. The ring is usually the edge of where your harsh treatment of the underarm leaves off. In this area, a gentle scrubbing cloth, preferably made of sisal, is a must.

Knees and elbows
These areas can take a fairly vigorous rubbing with a sisal scrubbing cloth. But never buff your skin until it turns red — that is a sign you are being too hard on your skin.

Legs, arms, and torso
The rest of your body requires gentle treatment. Coat yourself with baby oil, then half an hour later take a long bath, exfoliating very gently with a cottom washcloth. The keyword is gentle.

Red, oozing skin does not look better than orange skin!

You are orange all over
What to do: soak in the tub. A single bath may do it for you; if not, take a bath every day until your tan is gone. If you have a swimming pool handy, a nice long swim will do the trick.

Soaking in water works because your sunless tanner colored the outermost dead skin cells brown. These skin cells, when they get wet, soak up water like a sponge, and get tremendously huge, up to 30 times their original size. The bigger the skin cell gets, the lighter the "tan" gets.

Warning: Some extra dark products, such as Clinique Self Sun in dark and Neutrogena Sunless Tanning Foam in Deep and Extra Deep, may linger, especially on ankles and wrists, for up to two weeks. I do not advise trying to remove them by any method other than the soaking in the tub method.

If you can't get it off...
If these methods fail to remove an orange or uneven sunless tan, it's because it can't be removed, and you are going to have to let time take its course. Soak in the tub daily, keep your skin moisturized, and your ordeal by orange will be over before you know it.

You can temporarily hide an orange or yellow sunless tan by applying a purple or blue tinted sunscreen. Check the children's sunscreen section for numerous choices. Even the products with a "vanishing tint" work. The only downside is that you are likely to smell like a grape or a blueberry, and for reasons impossible to justify, many of these products do NOT contain full UVA protection, lacking titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, or avobenzone.

If you're female, a bronzing powder will make an orange tan on the face look downright good. Bonne Bell Powder Bronze is one of the best, regardless of price. You must invest in a quality face powder brush to get good results from any bronzing powder — the dinky brushes included with these products will leave you looking streaky.

If you're male, try Bonne Bell Gel Bronze. It will add a reddish brown tone to your fake tan that will vastly improve it.

See the Bonne Bell web site for help finding a store in your area. I've been having the best luck with Target.

If you are fortunate enough to have Au Courant Eclipse Tinted Water Resistant Sunscreen on hand, you are saved! Its sheer natural brown tint does not stain hands, and will cover up any sunless tanning disaster. Gosh, I love this stuff.