You know it’s summertime when you smell the very distinct fragrance of Banana Boat tanning products. Oils and lotions all have the same wonderful light fragrance of coconut.
I used to use Banana Boat Dark Tanning Oil with an SPF of 2.
For many years I used this product to help me achieve a beautiful golden tan on my otherwise yellowish skintone. It contains aloe based moisturizers, so your skin does not dry out from the sun and heat. It also contains, coconut oil, lanolin, cocoa butter, mineral oil, padimate, ethylhexyl and a few other unpronouncable ingredients. They are all combined to be applied to your entire body to help the suns rays bake you until you are a beautiful bronzelike color.
Don’t get me wrong, I really loved the product and used it for as long as I can remember, but, as time went on and I learned more and more about how harmful the sun really is for your skin, I had to go to higher and higher SPF’s.
[*What I wrote above (with the asterisk) is really what the sun does to you. It literally bakes your skin. It cooks it! Roasts it! And you know what happens to anything that gets bakes or roasted. YUK!]
While Banana Boatdoes allow your skin to tan and not burn, the SPF factors are way too low in their products! There isn’t enough SPF to keep out enough of the suns UV rays, which have now been proven to not only age your skin faster (who need that!)but, to cause cancer!(nobody needs that!)
What I do now, because I really love Banana Boat is use it every day on exposed areas of my skin, when I am NOT sunbathing, but only going to be outdoors for short periods of time. It keeps my skin moisturized and gives me a little protection for the times I’m in and out of my car or the stores, etc.
As I said, I really like the product (and wish it came with an SPF of 30!)
Try it for short periods of sun exposure and you’ll see what I mean. The fragrance gets you first and the moisturizers feel great.