Fantasy Tan Page Three

But back to the hotel room. Soon the goodies were everywhere: bottles of bronzer, clear sunless tanning solution, sparkly bronze powder, lip gloss in twenty different shades, and the coolest thing I have ever seen: a round compact about four inches across with six different shades of creamy foundation, perfect for people who are a different color each day.

I added my stuff to the piles: I had brought along a bathing suit, a bathrobe, and my own collection of bronzers.

As I changed into my bathing suit in the bathroom, I realized with some humor that I had never had another person apply sunless tanners to me. Not once. What a treat this was going to be.

And it was a treat. It took Adele about ten minutes to cover me with the solution from head to toe. Because it's a manual process, application is exact. Hands and feet don't get more than they need.

When Adele was done, I admired my tan line in the mirror. I felt quite dry as soon as she was finished, but I waited for ten minutes before putting on a robe. Then Holy Cow! Look at the time! It was after 9 P.M. and we still hadn't eaten dinner.

As casually as some women run a brush through their hair, Adele quickly applied some of the sunless tanning mist to her face and neck as part of her preparations for going out.

Starr was temporarily not using sunless tanners on her face while undergoing prescription facial treatments. But on one arm she had three coats of Fantasy Tan; on the other arm, nothing.

She was keeping assorted areas pale to test a new formula that included erythrulose. She called the formula D & E, the D standing for dihydroxyacetone or DHA, the active ingredient in all sunless tanners. In addition, she is testing a formula with erythrulose only.

She wondered if erythrulose would be effective on its own, having learned that erythrulose can take more than 24 hours to reach its maximum color. She wondered if, by the time the color had developed, it would have exfoliated off!

For those of you allergic to DHA, remain calm — she will be letting us know how the erythrulose only formula works out.

While the airbrush system Adele had just used to give me a Fantasy Tan was reasonably small and quiet, Starr has been working on something extra small and sleek that will appeal to spas and dermatologists, not to mention home users.