I try to avoid exposing my children to unnecessary chemicals, whether that means using BPA-free sippy cups or skipping the popular brands of macaroni and cheese and choosing a non-GMO organic brand instead. I feel the same way about what I put on their skin. I use California Baby Calendula Cream to treat those pesky dry elbows and never run the bath without some Dr. Bronner’s Organic Castile on hand. And when the kids are looking a little pale—who isn’t, after surviving the “Polar Vortex of 2014?”—I choose organic products like Naturally Tan Baby to give their delicate skin a sun-kissed cast.
With this product’s certified vegan, USDA certified organic formula, I don’t have to worry about dangerous ingredients—or embarrassing swim diaper tan lines. It’s a product that’s great not only for infants but for the whole family, though. My 8-year-old daughter is too shy to wear a bikini, but fortunately she doesn’t have a pasty white belly, thanks to Naturally Tan Baby.
It’s true that my children occasionally complain about the need to have their skin exfoliated prior to an application of the sunless tanner. But I remind them that when I was a child, I would have welcomed the slight discomfort of an exfoliating product compared to how I was told to achieve my natural glow: grandmother would hand me a bottle of baby oil infused with iodine and telling me to go “fry” on her roof so I that I would more closely resemble my olive-skinned cousins.
I hate to sound like one of those “In my day, I had to walk through 8 miles of snow barefoot to get to school” kinds of parents, but it’s certainly true that my children are able to achieve a healthy, enviably deep tan with zero exposure to harmful UV rays or icky, peeling burns they’d undoubtedly complain about for weeks.
For best results, apply Naturally Tan Baby immediately after a deep pore scrub, then follow up with Naturally Tan Baby Maintenance Lotion every day to prevent fading.
JUST KIDDING! The above blog was fabricated in honor of April Fools’ Day – for the record, we do NOT recommend any self-tanning products for children. For great advice on how to protect yourself and your children from the sun’s harmful rays, check out “A Fair-Skinned Mom’s Guide to Sunscreen.”