My Face Stinks

Which can only mean one thing...it's spring time and I've begun my yearly transformation from transparently white skin that would make Bella Swan envious to a light peach color via sunless tanning lotion.  I'm curious as to what essential ingredient is used in sunless tanning products that causes every formula I've tried to reek.

Tanning has never been my strong suit.  I'm a burn and peel kind of gal.  My arms and face have the potential to tan, but the rest of me...forget about it.  I recall one summer as a fourteen year old when I vowed to tan my legs.  I'd lay out in the sun, the smell of coconut on the breeze from the Hawaiian Tropic SPF 6 slathered on my body.  I'd sweat, because that is my strong suit and generally doze in and out of consciousness.  Guess what?  By the time September came around I was the color of French Vanilla ice cream.  Slightly less white than I was to begin with.  My progenitors must have been living at the north pole to cause me to have such a lack of pigmentation in my skin.

Shortly before my husband and I's first date I fell asleep on the quad at USU under the April sun.  I think I slept for a good hour or more.  When I woke up I could tell almost immediately that my face was burned.  Not my whole face mind you, but the right side of my face.  For the next few days I walked around like a toned down version of Harvey Dent off of Batman, AKA Two-Face.  My husband was in heavy pursuit of me at that time and for my part I kept a few steps ahead of him.  I recall him being incredibly delighted at my two-toned face.  I always think that my husband was initially attracted to me because he had recently returned from Venezuela and well, he was still a bit under the Latin influence.  I was curvy with dark curly hair and I was certain he was pursuing me because of my shared physical traits with those Venezuelan lovelies that he had left behind.  I still wonder who Bianca was.  He suggested Bianca as a name for our first born because it was a girl he knew on his mission.  Hmmm?  Anyway, I also believe that Brigham kept on chasing me because I made him laugh.  Starting with that fateful day I fell asleep with my head to the side.

I love spring time.  It holds the promise of all things good.  Gone are the days where I'd try to tan my skin beyond it's capacity.  I've learned to accept the milky white glow blinding those who dare to stare directly into the skin of my shins.  Sunless tanner can take the edge off.  Maybe add a little color to my face.  You know, not make people wonder what long term illness I'm suffering from.  But in the meantime I must endure this gosh-awful smell.