Product Review: St. Tropez Self Tan Bronzing Mousse

I have a love/hate relationship with self tanners. Almost without fail, they have been streaky, stinky experiences for me. Most of those I’ve tried have turned my ultra pale skin a sickly orange and overall, have not been at all attractive. With that in mind, you can probably understand my skepticism when I started seeing ads for St. Tropez’s Self Tan Bronzing Mousse.



After watching a couple of YouTube videos about this product, I decided to bite the bullet and shell out $42 for a large bottle (available here at Sephora in several sizes). As with all self tanners, preparation is key. The first thing that must be done is exfoliation. You can use just about anything to exfoliate from a homemade scrub made out of some sort of emollient product like Vaseline mixed with sugar or a commercially prepared scrub. I like to use either a loofah or a scrubby sponge. Here’s the one I have been using lately:



This step is so important to ensure a streak free finish so make it easy on yourself and exfoliate while in the shower or a bath (and after you shave your legs). Once you’ve done that, it’s time to moisturize. I like to use something that disappears into the skin fairly easily. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. St. Tropez (and others) make moisturizers for this purpose but just about any will do. Right now I’m using a Lubriderm moisturizer.



Make sure you that you get any dry areas covered, especially your knees and elbows. Once you’ve applied your moisturizer, let it sink in for a few minutes.



The St. Tropez self tanner comes out of the bottle as a dark brown mousse. Don’t worry, though, this is not the color your skin will be! Once you rub the foam onto your skin, the color disappears but it is great because you can see where you’ve actually applied the self tanner. This is different from others and is one reason that the self tanner finishes streak free. Another difference with the St. Tropez self tanner is that it has no awful smell! Yay!!


In the picture above, you can see the slight brown color where the mousse stayed on my hand prior to being smoothed in. The following picture shows what it looks like after I’ve smoothed it out completely.



After applying, wait 60 seconds (or longer if you want to but you don’t have to) before dressing. I have had no issues with color transferring to my clothing or bedding. For the next four hours, don’t take a shower, get wet, sweat, etc. The color will start developing and you’ll notice that your skin will turn a lovely shade of brown/bronze with no orange in sight! That’s another thing I love about this product---it doesn’t turn me orange! I find that most self tanners I’ve tried in the past do turn lighter skin tones an unattractive orange color but this one doesn’t. Another plus!

I’ve been using this St. Tropez for about two weeks and I’m very satisfied. Right now, my schedule is to do the process on Sundays and Thursdays and I’ve had good results. The color is not incredibly deep but it looks like I do when I tan naturally (which I haven’t done in years). I apply it to my legs, tops of my feet, arms, shoulders and décolletage but not my face. I prefer to use bronzer and a very sheer foundation in a slightly darker shade on my face but you can use this product on your face as well (and I may do that before the summer is over). St. Tropez takes my skin from ghostly white to a nice, light tan that looks very natural with my pale complexion. I imagine that if you applied it a bit heavier than I do that you’d see darker results.

Overall I’m very satisfied with this product and I recommend it highly. Have you tried St. Tropez’s Self Tan Bronzing Mousse? What do you think of it?

Ages of Beauty rating: *****