First things first – I received Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs lotion for free, courtesy of Influenster, for testing purposes; product was provided, but I am not paid or sponsored. More info in this post.
I’ve made no secrets that despite my love of makeup, I just can’t be bothered every day. Sure, I might slap on mascara on a daily basis, but I’m not sure I could bring myself to do a full face on a daily basis. Likewise, applying leg makeup is not exactly on the top of my list of beauty things to do on the regular (or…well, ever).
The Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs line isn’t new; I definitely recall seeing it on shelves at least ten years ago. Never giving enough bothers to want to fuss with body makeup, I had never tried it. Realistically, I never would have sought this out in the store. This is the product you buy when you either have varicose veins/are bruise prone OR go, “OH SHIT, I have a thing this evening and my legs are the color #ffffff!” and frankly, my veins haven’t yet become bothersome enough for me to care. Influenster (a social marketing platform similar to BzzAgent) sent me a kit with the product to try, so what the hell – I’ll try it for science.
Rather than the aerosol variety that I was familiar with, Influenster sent me a small tube of the Medium to Dark lotion. Although I knew what to expect from the spray, I wasn’t sure how the lotion would go.
Application
Just like tanning products, you should shave and exfoliate prior to application. The Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs lotion dispenses from the tube as a medium consistency, terra cotta orange color. That’s…encouraging.
I was pleased to discover that it did not dry too quickly on my skin so as not to allow me to get even coloring, but as I suspected from the color of the lotion, it was very orange on me; not dark, but orange. I used my hands, but this might do well with a bodyblender.
Surprisingly enough, the camera is far kinder to the coloring than both true natural light and daylight bulbs are – in fact, the photo looks nice. (I did take pictures with my mobile device because I really didn’t want to handle my DSLR with orange hands). In real life, it doesn’t look like a natural tan. It reminds me very much so of Mystic Tan, color-wise.
Wear
I was fairly cautious about having my legs touch anything after application. I did not go out in the rain, and I did not sweat. So taking those into consideration, I didn’t have it wear off on anything, but I was cautious. Otherwise, it did minimize a bruise I had…so there’s that.
Removal
You can’t just rinse this stuff off, it does require soap, and it does require some scrubbing. You will not want only your hands, either – you will definitely want some sort of scrubbing implement to get all of it – be it a wash cloth, a loofah, a pouf, whatever. Learn from me, though; don’t use a white washcloth or shower gloves if you can avoid it.
It took a solid minute to remove from a single leg with Dove soap and scrubbing. Those of you with textured shower floors might not be thrilled with this; although it didn’t leave a stain on mine, I also made the mistake of cleaning my shower before removing this, rather than after, and that kind of appeared to negate some of my cleaning efforts.
The Bottom Line
I wouldn’t buy it, and didn’t use the $2 coupon they sent me, either. I simply don’t care enough to paint myself like this. I will not force myself to be hyper-vigilant about making sure my legs don’t touch something lest I compromise the integrity of their terra cotta tone. I’ll just use sunless tanner if I’d like to enhance the tone of my skin; I won’t have to worry about it rubbing off on things (with the products I use, anyway). Besides, I don’t have the time or patience to vigorously scrub my legs on a daily basis, nor do I wish to have to scrub my shower that much more often.
UV exposure isn’t good for you, so I layer on the sunblock and self-tan. While achieving good color isn’t difficult, it does require prep and maintenance. Sometimes, you just can’t be bothered with all that. Sometimes, you just want to come home and collapse in bed (with your spouse, or your cats, or both, or neither), binge Agents of Shield or Daredevil (and then pout that you’ve finished what’s on Netflix), self-tanning routine be damned. AKA me, most of this summer.