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For ten Australian summers, I thought tanning was a matter of patience. It was a matter of method.
Every Christmas barbecue, the same joke, always with a laugh: “you’re the palest one on the beach”.
And yet I did exactly what everyone else does. Whole summers roasting on a towel, turning over every twenty minutes. Same result every year: I go from white to red without ever stopping at golden. I burn, I peel, and eight days later I’m see-through again. Under a UV index of 11, it happens even faster.
So I tried the self-tanners: orange palms, streaky knees, that biscuit smell you can pick up three metres away. Salon spray tans: an hour of my Saturday, a three-figure bill across the season, and the whole thing gone by the third shower. Tanning capsules: three boxes, and a four-word verdict, “nothing worth noticing.”
Eventually I worked out something far less funny. Here more than anywhere else, it wasn’t my tan I was going to lose. It was my skin.
I stopped looking for something to rub on. I wanted something natural, quick and safe, with a label I could actually read.
I ended up finding a serum. A drinkable one.
What made me buy it was an explanation nobody had ever given me.
What creates the colour are carotenoids. Fat-soluble pigments that pass into the bloodstream, then settle into the layers of the skin. The colour rises from within.
It isn’t a dye sitting on your skin. It’s a pigment stored inside it.
That is why it doesn’t wash off. Why there are no streaks and no tide marks. A pigment is stored, not smeared on.
I started on a Monday in September, right at the start of spring, without believing a word of it. A week later my sister asked me where I’d been on holiday.
That bottle was the Solambra drinkable self-tanning serum. Here are the seven reasons I have never gone back.
A normal tan isn’t skincare, it’s a defence reaction. Today’s colour gets paid for later: dryness, sun spots, loss of firmness. And under our sky, the bill lands a lot sooner than anywhere else.
This time, the colour builds from the inside. No long afternoons outdoors, no spray tan booth.
I keep the colour. I stopped paying the bill.
The formula fits on a single line: beta-carotene from carrot, annatto extract, L-tyrosine, vitamin E which contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress, vitamin C which contributes to normal collagen formation for the normal function of skin, and biotin which contributes to the maintenance of normal skin.
No synthetic dyes, no added sugar, no alcohol.
I can pronounce everything I drink.
No more waiting for clear skies, a free afternoon or a swimsuit. A few drops in my coffee, my tea or my juice, and it’s done.
The bottle is the size of a lipstick. It comes to the office, on the plane, away for the weekend up the coast.
My tan no longer depends on the weather.
A cream lays pigment on the surface layer of the skin: it leaves with that layer, in three to five days, and rarely evenly. A salon spray tan is the same countdown, only pricier.
Here the colour rises gently over the first ten to fifteen days, then holds for as long as I keep going. No sudden drop, no patchy leopard effect.
I’m not chasing my tan any more. I’m maintaining it.
Fair skin, freckles, blonde hair: in the sun I went straight from white to red without ever stopping at golden. Like a fair chunk of this country, honestly.
Because the serum doesn’t rely on how skin reacts to light, the starting point matters far less. The colour stays in line with your natural complexion, warmer, never orange.
It isn’t a colour stuck on top. It’s my complexion, in its summer version.
No layer to spread, no drying off in a robe, no light clothes to avoid for two hours. No streaks on the elbows, no tide marks at the ankles, no stained sheets. And no appointment to book either.
I pour, I drink, I leave for work.
The result shows. The method doesn’t.
A golden complexion doesn’t get noticed the way an outfit does, it reads as a state. People tell me I look rested, well. Nobody says “you’re tanned”, they say “you look great”.
And because the colour comes up slowly, nobody guesses what I use.
People don’t notice the method. They notice the person.
Three bottles, which is exactly the full 45-day course. Start today and you are ready for the first beach weekends.
“I wish I had known about this sooner. Three summers of slathering for nothing.”Verified customer review
Start my 45-day courseThe questions our customer care team hears most often.
No, as long as you stick to the dose. The dosage is calibrated for a slow, gradual build. Doubling the pipettes speeds nothing up, it only throws the colour off balance.
Around day 5, the healthy glow. Around day 10, the warmth in your complexion becomes visible. Around day 21, the golden tan has settled in.
That is exactly why the reference course is 45 days.
Three to four weeks, then it fades gently, like a holiday tan. For comparison, a self-tanning cream is gone in three to five days, and a salon spray tan rarely lasts more than a week.
Four full pipettes (4 ml) every morning, in a glass of water, juice or a smoothie. Preferably on an empty stomach. The taste is light and fruity, it disappears into the drink.
No known side effects at the recommended dose. The formula is not recommended for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, or for smokers and former smokers, because of the beta-carotene content.
No, and that is not its job. The serum colours your skin, it does not protect it from UV. Sunscreen stays essential every time you go outside, exactly as before.
None. Nothing is applied to the skin, so nothing transfers to your hands, your clothes or your sheets. No mitt, no drying time.
One bottle covers 15 days. The 45-day course (3 bottles) is the minimum we recommend for a settled result, and it is the one with 33% off. The 90-day course is for anyone who wants to hold the colour all summer, from November through to March.
You have 30 days to say so and get your money back, opened bottle included. Free delivery Australia-wide over $79, dispatched within 24 to 48 hours.
Dispatched in 48 to 72 hours, tracking sent by email.
Encrypted checkout, your details are never stored.
No change after 30 days, we refund you in full.
A real person answers every message, seven days a week.
