The short version
A bridal makeup artist who knows my work did Jamie P.’s wedding makeup. Under her lights she and her assistant stopped and asked, “wait, you have a spray tan?!” — and then had to know who did it. I had sprayed Jamie’s whole bridal party that Thursday –– a couple days before. This is that story, in her words, and why it is the only review of a spray tan that really counts: the one from the person looking at your face up close on the morning of.
There is one review of a spray tan that matters more than any other, and it is not the one the client gives. It is the one the makeup artist gives, silently, when she gets within six inches of a bride’s face under a ring light at seven in the morning and either sees a spray tan or sees skin.
Jamie P. got married this month. The Thursday before, a lot of her ladies came through the studio and I sprayed the bridal party. Then I did what I always do after a wedding week, which is nothing — the day belongs to the bride, the photographer and the makeup artist, and I hear how it went later, if at all.
This time I heard the next day, by Instagram message, from the makeup artist herself: Amber J. of @amberjennasmakeup, a Tampa bridal and destination makeup artist whose work I know and who knows mine; I have sprayed her before. She had done Jamie’s makeup that morning, and she wrote to tell me what happened in the chair.
In her words
“Her tan looked SOOOOO good”
That was the opener. Then the part I have read more times than I will admit:
“Me and my assistant were like ‘wait you have a spray tan?!’ And Jamie said yes and we were like it literally looks natural because it’s so beautiful and like violet undertoned. And then immediately we were like we have to know who did it”
So they asked. Jamie told them it was me. And the artist put it together:
“And she said you and I was like oh my god that makes sense why it looks so good because when you sprayed me my assistant complimented my spray tan then too”
I asked about the rest of the party, because a bride can be a one-off and a bridal party is a pattern. Her answer was four words:
“Yes they all loved their spray tans.”
She said she would tag the studio when Jamie goes up on her feed. I did not ask her to. The quotes above are exactly as Amber typed them, laugh-cry emoji removed and nothing added.
What she was actually seeing
The word she used was violet, and it is the right one. The fear everyone brings to a first spray tan is orange, and orange is what happens when a solution is too warm for the skin it is on, or when a machine sprays the same mix on everyone who walks in. A real tan on most people is cooler than you think — it leans violet-brown, not amber — and that is what reads as skin under a ring light and in a photographer’s raw files. I mix for the person on the table in front of me. Fourteen years in, that is still the whole job.
The other thing she was seeing is a tan at the right age. Jamie’s party was sprayed Thursday for a weekend wedding, which is the timing I give every bride: two days before. The color has settled, the first rinse is behind you, nothing is transferring onto a dress, and it is at its best exactly when the lights come on.
Why a makeup artist’s opinion is the one to want
A friend will tell you your tan looks great because she loves you. A makeup artist is holding your face, under light built to show every flaw, deciding how much foundation to use and what undertone to reach for. If a spray tan is there, she knows before she opens her kit, and she works around it. When she has to ask, the tan has done the only thing it was ever supposed to do: disappear into you.
That it came from an artist I have sprayed myself, whose own assistant had complimented her tan once before, is the part I keep coming back to. The beauty professionals in this town know each other’s work by sight. She knew it was us by sight.
If you are the bride
Book the whole party for two days before, come in clean and unmoisturized, and tell me who the photographer is so I can think about the light. The True Lily by Larae is $93 in the studio and it is the one I spray personally; for a party at the hotel or the rental, the mobile tan comes to you. The bridal page has the whole wedding-week sequence — brows, facials, lashes, tan — in the right order. Text (727) 218-7045 with the date and the headcount, and we build backwards from the day.
