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Next up in the TFWOC line of fire is the Xen-Tan Dark Lotion*. Even before the project started – back when I was a tanning novice – I’d heard of this award-winning brand.

Again like MakeBelieve, Xen-Tan has different tanning levels – the Dark Lotion is designed to produce an olive colour. When I read that I was a bit sceptical about how effective it’d be for a WOC (again, hate that phrase), I’m a tad past olive already.

The product itself is a thick, muddy-brown colour, with a bit of a green tinge. The tinge put me off slightly as I was worried I’d end up looking like Shrek, but it applied really smoothly – just like a body butter.

The smell is probably the best out of all of the tans we’ve tried so far throughout the project, and actually lasts quite well. As nice as the MakeBelieve tan smelt, the distinctive biscuity scent soon fought its way through, but this one held a pleasant smell for hours after application.

The colour pay off with this tan is what lets it down; although I can’t decide it it’s a good thing or a bad thing. After one coat I barely saw a difference in my colouring. After two coats I thought I saw a bit of change – but the pictures tell a different story …

Before

One coat

Two coats

As you can see they show that after one coat my skin looked a lot brighter – and slightly more yellow I think – then two coats really intensifies the colour.

The picture below is slightly more true to life. The blue line indicates the area with no tan, and the red line indicates the area with two coats. I’ve drawn the grey box in the middle to show my ‘tan line’ and as you can see it’s a very marginal change and very natural. I personally wouldn’t say I look ‘sun kissed’ but it definitely evens out the colouring in my arms.

Honestly speaking I’m not sure how long it lasted. Just because the colour wasn’t as defined as the last few tans, so after a couple of days I wasn’t sure whether I was looking at my natural colour or my ‘tanned’ colour.

I like this because it shows how natural the colour is. I didn’t feel uneasy about looking an unusual shade. On the other hand, we tan because we want to see a real colour pay off, right? We want to look darker/more bronzed – and we also want to know it!

Bottom line: The jury’s still out. I like it, but I’m just not sure how effective it is for WOC. I definitely think that on lighter skin tones this would give a gorgeous colour. But on me, I just don’t know. The fact that it smells gorgeous definitely helps (don’t worry, it’s a subtle fragrance), but I guess you can’t have it all right?

Xen-Tan Dark Lotion is available to buy from the Xen-Tan website, and is currently on sale (huzzah!) for £24.64/236ml.