Tanning oil or tanning lotion?

Oil and lotion get you to the same place — the colour comes from the sun either way. What changes is how the bottle goes on, how your skin feels an hour later, and how much of it ends up on your towel. Here is the honest difference, using our own oils and lotions as the examples.

What actually makes them different

An oil has no water in it at all. Our Coconut and Classic Tanning Oils are a light, refined mineral oil carrying a single UV filter, aloe extract and fragrance, and very little else. A lotion is an emulsion — water and oils held together by emulsifiers — which is what lets it soak in rather than sit on top. Our Tanning Lotion is built that way, with Cetearyl Alcohol and PEG-20 Stearate doing the holding; the Glitter lotion is a silicone-and-water base, which is what keeps its shimmer suspended instead of sinking to the bottom.

Choose oil if…

• You want the easiest even colour. Most patchy tans are patchy application, and a thin oil film is the hardest format to get wrong.
• You like a glossy finish. Our oils go on clear and leave skin looking lit rather than wet once they have settled.
• You are staying put. A towel, a lounger, an afternoon on the sand — oil suits a day where you are not pulling clothes on and off.

Choose lotion if…

• You do not like the slick. The Tanning Lotion sinks in and dries matte, so nothing feels greasy an hour later.
• You are getting dressed again soon. Matte skin will not print onto a shirt, a towel or a car seat the way fresh oil can.
• You want a little shimmer. The Coconut Tanning Lotion · Glitter carries a fine mica glow, and it is also the only bottle in our tanning range with niacinamide and glycerin in it.

How to apply each one

The start is the same for both: clean, dry skin; real SPF first on the skin you are protecting; one limb at a time. Then the method splits.

• Oil. Warm it in your palms first — warm oil spreads thin, cold oil drags. Long strokes to spread, small circles to blend the seams, and wash your palms afterwards. The full routine is in how to apply tanning oil properly.
• Lotion. Work it in properly, because unlike an oil, a lotion shows where you missed once it dries. Shake the Glitter lotion before you use it — shimmer settles however well it is suspended — and spread it thin, since pearl pigment shows streaks more readily than a plain lotion.

Either way, reapply every two hours and straight after every swim or towel-dry. Water, sweat and towels take both off.

And the scent?

Format and scent are separate choices, and each format comes in both of our scent families — the sweet one, coconut over caramel, and the green one, fresh and herbal rather than sweet.

How the rest of the range fits around these four — the Sunblocks and the aftercare — is in which Hawaiian Style is right for you?