Bondi Sands or St Tropez, which should I pick?

This is the question we get asked at the door more than any other, usually while we are setting the tent up. Here is the proper answer.

The short version

	Bondi Sands	St Tropez
Price	£22 to £25 by shade	£26
Best for	Nights out, holidays, everyday glow	Weddings, photography, big occasions
Colour	Warm, golden, natural	Slightly cooler, very true to skin
Under a camera flash	Very good	The best we use
Fade	Beautiful and even	Excellent, very gradual
First timers	Yes, start here	Fine, but usually unnecessary

Bondi Sands, the all-rounder

This is what most people book and it is what we would put a first timer in nearly every time.

It is warm and golden and it suits an enormous range of skin tones, which for Ayrshire matters, because most of us are working from a fairly pale starting point for nine months of the year.

Three shades, and the choice is genuinely important:

Medium, 8%, £22. Our most-booked option by a distance. Fair to medium skin, first tans, everyday glow. Very hard to get wrong.

Dark, 12%, £23. Nights out and events. Medium to olive skin, or anyone who already has a bit of colour and wants more.

Ultra Dark, 14.5%, £25. Our strongest. Holidays and anyone who wants a proper deep colour and knows it.

More detail on all three on the Bondi Sands page.

St Tropez, the wedding one

St Tropez is the premium product and £26 is the price.

What you are paying for is how it behaves under a camera. Flash photography is unforgiving and it flattens a lot of tans out, or worse, pulls them orange. St Tropez holds its tone better than anything else we use, which is exactly why brides go for it.

The colour sits slightly cooler and truer to natural skin. Next to a warm golden tan it can look subtler in the mirror, and then noticeably better in the photographs. That trade is the whole point.

It also fades very gradually, which matters when the wedding is a three day affair.

More on the St Tropez page, and if it is a wedding, start at the bridal page instead, because timing matters as much as product.

So how do you actually choose?

Pick Bondi Sands if it is a night out, a holiday, a race day, a birthday, or you just fancy some colour. Also if it is your first tan, because it is the most forgiving.

Pick St Tropez if it is your wedding, you are in a wedding party, it is a big anniversary, or there will be a professional photographer. Anything where the photos outlive the night.

And there is a third option people forget. Our own BeautyRokz Tan at £20 is natural, good value and the one a lot of our regulars quietly stick with. It is not a lesser product, it is a different one.

What we would actually say at your door

If you are stuck, ask us. We will look at your skin tone, ask what you are wearing and where you are going, and tell you straight.

Shade matching is most of this job. The product matters less than picking the right one for you, and that is the bit sixteen years buys you.