Building muscle in a gym I was ok with as I have been training for 8 years but tanning, that is another story. I researched and talked to people as I found that this is a very individual process and there is no one clear strategy. I decided to use over three days (50/50) contest colour / and a customised tan by Seka's Beauty Case @101 Darley Beauty Collective. I was extremely happy with my tan and had many people comment how good the colour looked, which is what I was hoping to achieve. I chose the three day approach as I figured if something went wrong I had time to start again until I got the colour right. The skin preparation is extremely important. Absolutely NO sun leading up to the spray tan to avoid skin burning and uneven sun tan marks, more importantly want to avoid the skin from peeling you want to keep the skin moisturised and dehydrated. My competition was on Saturday, on and the Wednesday night prior to the competition I exfoliated my body and shaved and moisturised elbows, feet and hands and knees. It’s a good idea to moisturise between your spray tans and rinse off the excess moisturiser prior to your next spray tan to ensure your skin stays dehydrated as the spray tan can dry out the skin. Seka's Beauty Case @101 Darley Beauty Collective will advise which products are best to use on the skin. Thursday morning - Spray tan 1: 1 coat on face, 2 coats body and 3 coats legs. Leave the spray tan on for 10 hrs and rinse off in shower with water only (no soap) and light towel pat dry, no rubbing. Thursday night - Spray tan 2: same spray tan process and leave on all night. Rinse in morning. Friday morning - Spray tan 3: no spray tan on face, hands or feet. 2 coats body, 3 coats legs. Rinse that night for a Saturday morning show.On the day of the contest use dream tan as a top coat about 30 minutes before stage time. Rubbed on to cover but not thick like a mud and slap the skin after. Then it’s time to compete. You feel gross and way too dark. You can’t do much but lie around in your underwear for 2 days, but the pictures came out great. All the judges commented that it was a great colour. Lessons Learnt. Skin preparation is very important. Be very careful with the shave and when you exfoliate, be gentle on the skin as any razor cuts, scratches or imperfections on the skin the spray tan will grab to and show up darker. Look after the skin prior to the spray tan. Thank you so much Sonja and the team at Seka's Beauty Case @101 Darley Beauty Collective. Shane Arthurson - Right hand side