There are many, many things women do to appear more attractive. I freely admit that most of the crazy stuff I do (eyebrow plucking, toenail painting, cuticle moisturizing, foot pumicing) go largely unnoticed by The Man. They are things I do to prevent me from being LESS attractive. They are things which men do not notice unless they are not done. They don’t know WHY that bushy-eyebrowed, snaggle-toed, rough-fingered, scaly-heeled woman doesn’t turn them on, she just doesn’t.

Most grooming isn’t about what you see; it’s about what you DON’T see. It’s the pure enjoyment of two feet meeting under the covers after a night of passion and just… touching. Try that if you’ve got hangnails, athlete’s foot and an ingrown toenail. Not pretty.

It is a well-known fact that everyone looks thinner with a tan. Everyone. The primary reason that people on the beach in Rio de Janeiro all seem to be beautiful is that they are all the color of a fifty-year-old copper penny. 

::Slight pause while we all hum The Girl from Ipanema:: 

For the record, I look rather nice with a tan. I have lived in Florida for most of my life and I can say with a great amount of certainty that I look thinner, healthier and less whale-like with a tan. For the most part, the tanned look does not match my general aesthetic sensibilities, however. Couple that with the likelihood of developing skin cancer from sun exposure and I was ready hang up my swimsuit for life.

When I was in high school, I distinctly remember paying $22 a month for the privilege of frying myself in a tanning bed. I did that for two months before the prom. At the time, skin cancer was something that happened to people in Australia. Their children had to run around on the beach in space suits because of the hole in the ozone layer. I just wanted to look nice in my prom dress. I think I did all right.

Fifteen years can be a real bitch.

I want to wear shorts. It’s against everything I stand for or hold dear, but I live in Florida and it’s incredibly hot. I’d like to be able to walk through the garden center at Lowe’s, not sweating and not hearing people gasp in horror at the disgusting blue veins my dear children have left behind like Hallmark cards. Yet, I do not want to end up like one of those leathery lizard women in a beach bar drinking Long Island Iced Teas with their crepe-y lip lines puckered around their straws.

I read recently in a women’s magazine (which shall remain nameless) that if one were to use a “gradual tanning moisturizer”, one might obtain a “healthy glow” which “masked imperfections on the leg such as scars or unsightly veining.”

A little color wouldn’t hurt, right?

Surely those moisturizers wouldn’t turn a person ORANGE the way one-application self-tanners might?

Certainly an intelligent person such as myself could operate a squeeze bottle?

Let us explore this adventure now in a photo montage.

First… exfoliate.
For the vanity impaired, let me translate:
Use these gloves with the texture of a cheese grater to remove the top layer of your skin.

If you have any skin left, it will dye THAT skin a darker color than the rest of you. How unpleasant would that be?

Next:
Smooth this lotion EVENLY on your body. Wash your hands. No one’s hands are tan.

Then, stand there like an idiot for a half hour while it dries, otherwise, you will dye everything you touch like some sort of carrot-infused King Midas.

Go to bed. Results will be forthcoming.

Here is a before photo of my legs for reference.

Notice that I am not just white. I am damned near transparent.

Here is what I wound up with in the morning:

I SWEAR I applied it evenly. I SWEAR I was properly exfoliated.

Just in case you think only my feet were involved in this travesty:

I am now orange. Oh, and you can still see the giant blue veins in my legs.

I won’t show you my arms.
There are things too horrifying for me to inflict on people I love.