As fall makes its first appearance of 2025, it’s only natural to want to keep that sun-kissed glow into the chillier months. What’s not natural is the spray tan or body makeup used to achieve that look — unless that is, if you know how to color-match, blend and apply self-tanner correctly.
Let’s take, for example, these photos that demonstrate some challenging applications one may encounter with makeup and self-tanner:
Bryan Cantor, a celebrity makeup artist, hairstylist and groomer told HuffPost, “We see that the chosen foundation shade does not match his undertone (let alone his skin tone).”
Trina Eibon, the business manager of IONIQ, an at-home spray tan brand, told HuffPost that “even the most experienced people can run into small application hiccups.” Bright light and flash photography can magnify the errors and incorrect choice in the shade of tanner for your skin tone. She noted that in the photos seen here on this page, the face-neck mismatch is “one of the most common application errors when using traditional self-tanners that require manual blending.”
She also pointed out that the undertone drift toward orange can happen when a self-tanner doesn’t vibe with your skin pH. “Many conventional tanners don’t adapt to individual skin tones, which can lead to unnatural-looking results.”
