When should I get a spray tan before a holiday?

We do a lot of holiday tans. Prestwick Airport is fifteen minutes from our base and half of Ayrshire seems to fly out of Glasgow, so this comes up constantly from about February onwards.

Here is what actually works, and the bits people get wrong.

The timing

Two days before you fly is the sweet spot. The colour has fully developed, you have had your first rinse, and there is no risk of it marking your clothes on the plane.

The day before works. Just leave enough time to shower before you pack yourself into a seat for four hours.

The morning of your flight is a bad idea. You will be warm, you will be stressed, you will be carrying bags, and a developing tan plus a sweaty airport is how you get patchy. We will usually try to talk you out of it.

If you are on an early flight out of Prestwick or Glasgow, count backwards properly. A 6am flight means a 3am start, and a tan applied the previous evening has barely settled.

What to pack, and what to leave

Take a proper moisturiser. Hotel body lotion is usually thin and perfumed and will not do much. Your tan lives or dies on daily moisturising, and that matters more in a hot climate where you are showering twice a day.

Take a gradual tanner or a tinted moisturiser if you want to top up mid-holiday. A spray tan will not survive a fortnight.

Leave the exfoliating scrub at home until you are ready to take it all off.

The pool, the sea and the sun cream

This is the part people do not expect.

Chlorine is the worst thing for it. A week of pool swimming will strip a spray tan faster than anything else on this list. Sea water is gentler but not by much.

Oil-based sun creams break it down. Anything heavily oily, including a lot of tanning oils, will lift the colour unevenly. A normal lotion or a spray SPF is fine.

And it is worth saying plainly: a spray tan is not sun protection. It gives you no SPF whatsoever. Not one factor. You still burn exactly the same as you would with pale skin, and a fair few people have learned that the hard way on day one in Tenerife. Wear proper sun cream.

Why bother if you are going somewhere sunny anyway?

Fair question, and we get asked it a lot.

Most people book a holiday tan for the first two or three days, not the fortnight. Nobody wants the airport photos, the first night out and the first day at the pool done at full Scottish pale. An even base also means you are less tempted to rush your own tan and burn on day one.

There is also the confidence bit, which matters more than people admit. Getting into a swimsuit for the first time in a year is easier with a bit of colour on. That is the real reason most of our clients book before a holiday, even if they say it is for the photos.

Coming home

If you have caught real sun, wait until it has settled and any peeling has finished before you tan again. Product on peeling skin will not take evenly and it is not comfortable.

Once you are back to normal, get the old tan off properly first. Our guide on removing fake tan will save you scrubbing yourself raw.

And if the holiday is a wedding abroad, talk to us earlier rather than later. That needs a different plan, and we have done a few.