TFWOC Project Week #3 - MakeBelieve Self Tan Lotion Review

The next brand up in the TFWOC Project is a brand called Make Believe. Before the project I hadn’t even heard of this brand, but I’m quickly falling in love with it.

Before I start my review though, I just want to send the lovely people at Make Believe a huge thank you for their generosity in the project.

I’ll be reviewing the MakeBelieve Self Tan Lotion with Bronzer* today, however reviews of the other products will come soon!

I had high expectations of this product after trying Abi O’s Shimmer Tan Boost and Karamel & Brown’s Glow Fast. And honestly, this really exceeded my expectations.

For starters the branding really does it for me. Packaging is very important (fickle, I know!), and Make Believe looks affordable yet decadent.

Available in five different ‘zones’ I received Zone 4, which aims to provide a golden tanned look. I love how the zones enable you to control what kind of look you’re after, wave goodbye to the oopma-loopma look, eh?

The lotion comes with plastic gloves, however I found these more of a hindrance than help to be honest. Latex gloves or a mitt would make the application such simpler, but for the sake of the project I used the gloves and was pretty pleased with the result!

The lotion itself reminds me of the chocolate sauce you get from an ice-cream van, not completely chocolate coloured but a very dense brown. And the smell, oh the smell. It’s gorgeous. It’s quite sweet, nothing like the usual biscuit or curry odour complaints. I will admit that the smell dissipates after a little while into a slight biscuit-y scent, but nothing overpowering.

I love the colour it gave me; golden tan is definitely an accurate description. This look was achieved with two coats of the lotion. On the slighter side of my arm it removed all of the yellow tones in my skin, and on the darker side it removed the red tones – so it definitely adapts perfectly.

It’s also very moisturising, so I didn’t need to apply anything on my skin after applying the tan – no ashy skin here!

I see myself using the Make Believe tan more than the other tan I tried – simply because I like how adaptable it is on the skin. Again, I wouldn’t use it all the time but definitely fairly regularly.

My only issue with the lotion is time it takes to dry. It took ages to work the tan into my skin, and then slightly longer for it to dry. It was hardly an age but obviously when you’re waiting, two minutes can feel like 10. I also found that the colour looked less vibrant after 2-3 days, but the lotion is easily applied so that wasn’t too much of an issue.

Bottom line: LOVE, love, love. This is definitely the tan that has shown me that dark-skinned women can use fake tan! At £24.50 it’s quite pricey, but it’ll definitely last a while!

TFWOC - ★★★★★

You can buy Make Believe Self Tan Lotion with Bronzer directly the MakeBelieveBeauty website, priced at £24.50/200ml.

---

Review: Jason Hydrating Hemp Hand and Body Lotion

I’ve mentioned lots of times that I have really dry skin. Due to this I’ve always found oils more effective that creams and lotions. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve come across a few creams that have done wonders for my ashy skin, but on the most part they never seem to be as effective as body oil.

I jumped at the chance to try Jason Hydrating Hemp Hand and Body Lotion* as it’s meant for extremely dry skin.

Made with no parabens or phthalates and a whole heap of essential oils, this lotion is very skin-friendly.

I expected it to smell horrible – the hemp range in The Body Shop stinks (although I’ve heard it’s pretty effective!). However, it doesn’t smell bad at all it actually smells quite fresh.

I had my doubts about how effective it’d be when I first applied it. The creams that have worked for me in the past have all been thick and very dense, like body butter, but this was quite light.

I didn’t want to write it off without even giving it a proper chance. So I did. And I was bitterly disappointed. After about 6 hours my ankles, knees and elbows were white. I’d forgotten to put my body butter in my bag – so I had to walk around with brown skin and ashy grey limbs. Not a good look.

I didn’t want to give up on it completely, so next time I applied my Body Shop Beautifying Oil over the top and the results were amazing. The two individually don’t last more than 5-6hours on me, but together they lasted the whole day, with no ashy limbs!

Bottom line: I personally wouldn’t buy it as used on it’s own it’s really not moisturising enough for me. I don’t think it’s suitable for people with extremely dry skin, but it’s definitely great for anyone whose skin needs a bit of a moisture boost. 

You can buy Jason Hydrating Hemp Hand and Body Lotion from the Jason website, priced at £7.99/237ml.

---