Adventures in Self-Tanning

I'm reading in a wedding this Friday. All of my friends who are in the wedding are the sorts of people who develop a deep, bronzed body after approximately 30 seconds in the sun. I, on the other hand, am German. Germans are not known for their tanning abilities. They are known for a fondness for dark beer and their bad decisions in the '40s, neither of which are things I particularly care to brag about. Anyway, when I go to buy make-up, I buy the second-lightest shade, the lightest shade being reserved for albinos. I am as white as white girls get. However, despite knowing this, I still bought a pale-yellow dress for the wedding, which makes me look horribly pasty -- maybe even sick -- but it was on sale for $25 and it had pretty beading.

So, self-tanner.

I haven't attempted to apply self-tanner since my junior year of high school, almost 15 years ago. Silly me, I suspected they might have idiot-proofed the product since then, so after showering on Friday, I had my husband do my back and then sort of hastily slathered it on before going to attend to the little angel. Mistake. Bad mistake.

The next day, I awoke to a pleasant shade of just-golden-kissed on my skin. I specifically chose this product because it built a tan gradually. I didn't want to end up looking like an Oompa-Loompa. THANK GOD FOR THAT. Somehow I had missed huge swaths of skin, ending up with a self-tan that looked somewhere between "dirty" and "melanoma."

After sporting a SWEATER IN AUGUST to my husband's 31st birthday party on Saturday, I resolved to try again on Sunday. This time, I donned surgical gloves and spent about 15 minutes rubbing it in with circular motions. It looks fabulous, just in time to wear off by Friday. I'll have to try this whole routine again on Wednesday.

Why did I buy a yellow dress? The things we do in the name of fashion.