Review: L'oreal Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Mist

Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians reading this! It looks like a lovely day today, I hope everyone has a nice weekend! Onto the review... today it's L'oreal's Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Mist. In my further attempt to look less pasty and ghost-like for the summer, I have been on the hunt for a good self-tanning product. The St.Moriz was good, review of that here, but it left me half and half because I have to order it online (not available in Canada) and I think I need the dark version as the regular doesn't get me dark enough. There are lots and lots of self-tanning products that can be found in the drugstore, some better than others, lots of gradual ones, not too many instant however. I picked up L'oreal Sublime Mousse, it comes in an attractive curvy bottle, it was $13.99 at Walmart in Canada. It's pricey in my opinion for what you get, it's a 150ml bottle, but since it's a mist you use A LOT of it. I used up the entire bottle in 2 days!

This self tanning products comes with a cute nozzle head, I bought this a few years ago and the packaging was the exact same aside from that nozzle. I have this in the colour "Medium", which is the middle tone. The bottle reads "the first salon quality tan from L'oreal Paris, Sublime Bronze Express Pro Salon Airbrush Self-Tanning Mist with breakthrough airbrush system gives you professional  inspired airbrush tanning results at home. New salon inspired wide angle jet applicator provides continuous 360 coverage. The super-fine mist applicator applies evenly and flash-dries, so there is no need to rub in." It goes onto say "100% natural looking even, sunless tan begins to develop in less than an hour,  smooth streak-free, even looking golden skin tone, covers a greater area of skin at one time, light citrus-fresh scent for pleasant application." There seems to be a lot of focus on the word AIRBRUSH, however I did not get that AIRBRUSH result that they are talking about, most definitely not.

Want to know what I think? I think the pictures below will tell the story well, but here is a synopsis. This is a mediocre product. First off, it does not dry in a flash, half an hour later I can still feel it's tackiness, it does not set as quickly as I would expect judging from the description. The smell is okay, I was experiencing migraines while applying this and I don't think the smell helped, I started doing it outside near the end (I would recommend always applying tanning products outside in the fresh air). When it sprays out it is a fine mist, however it sprays out CLEAR so you cannot tell how much you are putting on, where you've already put it on or how it will look. So I was left with light and dark spots everywhere and I for some reason could not get them to match up very well. The colour is nice, it's a golden tone, not red and looks believable I think, IF you could get it even, which I cannot. When it sprays out there is a cloud of it all over you, like an arm's length so I feel like I am losing product.

Here is some of the mess that this self-tanner created, as you can see on my arm here the left side is the tanned part, I like the colour, it's dark, but it's splotchy and uneven, and as much as I sprayed the right side I couldn't get it to match up it would slowly get darker but definitely not dark enough to match. Also to get it this dark I had to go over it multiple times, using up a lot of product in the process. The bottle says "no streaks" but it does patch, the main problem is you can't tell how much you are putting on since it's clear.

Another thing I noticed while waiting and waiting and waiting for it to dry, when sprayed it would cling to the baby hairs on my skin, and didn't seem to absorb at all, maybe this product is just not meant for my skin? This is not a quick dry product. I was fanning myself and blowing on my skin to get this to dry it was that bad.

It's important to exfoliate and moisturize before putting on any tanning product, so that you don't get it settling in dry areas, however as much as I did and I still got it building up badly in places like my wrists (picture above), knees, elbows etc. When I tried to scrub this off in the shower it would not budge, which is nice if you get a good application since it lasts, but not good if you make a mistake. My legs and feet look really dark since I was concentrating a lot of the product on there (I wanted to wear shorts this weekend) and they look leathery, I am not kidding I look like those old ladies that over bake when they were younger and now have messed up skin!

I sprayed this on directly to my skin, starting at my arms, it says not to rub it. I starting using a mist halfway through because the stuff would not dry and I didn't think I was getting an even application. The next day I woke up with palms that were tanned all over (picture above). How did I get it on my palms? I guess I was touching the parts that I sprayed to see if it had dried and it hadn't so it transferred. The bottle says you see results in less than an hour, I would disagree, to get the true effect of what the tan will turn out like it takes overnight, which is a long time in my opinion. This is not an "express" process as the bottle would have you believe.

Would I recommend this product? It did not work well for me, so no I would not recommend it. I had high hopes for this judging by it's claims on the packaging but the claims were not true. Combined with how slow it dries, the clear texture (tricky application) and how fast I went through the bottle I would not re-purchase this. I am thinking of trying the "dark" version because maybe I won't need as much product to get the effect that I want. Please tell me your experiences if you've used this before.