Self-tanning searches double every week in March

Searches for self-tanning products have doubled every week in March as UK consumers prepare to “glow up” ahead of the easing of national lockdown restrictions.

The findings, from Bali-born self-tan brand Coco & Eve, also reveal that UK online searches for fake tan have also doubled since January.

The findings follow a positive year for the self-tanning category, with many locked down consumers having turned to self-tan products as “mood boosting alternatives” to cosmetics and to counter the new phenomenon of “Zoom Face,” Coco & Eve said.

The brand’s own UK tan sales rose by 250% in 2020 - selling at a rate of one every 20 seconds at the peak of at home tanning during the first national lockdown in April 2020.

“This isn’t a new phenomenon, only one that was enhanced by Covid-19," Coco & Eve head of brand Tom Reynolds said.

“Whether it’s turning us from a grey shade of jaundice to evening out pigmentation and skin tone in darker skins – we can all agree that a glow makes us feel better and even more so when it feels like the world is less than better,” he added.

A consumer survey on the use of self-tan products during the pandemic revealed that for 97% of people, a self-tan glow made them look or feel better, with consumers using words such as “healthy, happy and confident.”

TikTok has been leading the tanning craze with #faketan reaching 422 million tags and #tanningchallenge reaching 208 million.