" ..... can a rain-drenched New Yorker get a Kerry glow in time for the debate?
" To find out, I tried the friendly folks at Hollywood Tans on 25th Street and Sixth Avenue. "I want to look like John Kerry," I announced. The staff at the front desk laughed. "I saw that photo," said staffer Iris Elton. She said she wasn't sure they could pull off a pumpkin-orange glow - "but we can make you look really dark," she said.
"How long do you think that would take?" Elton thought it over. "Six seconds," she said. "That's for the full-body Instant Tan, which will last about four days." Sold.
I paid $30 for the three-step tan job (plus 46 cents for an optional pair of paper booties). First, you get sprayed with dihydroxyacetone (DHB), which is FDA-approved and not as evil as it sounds. Basically, it dyes the top layer of skin. I was told to get in the shower, where your whole body gets sprayed. "So," I awkwardly asked Iris, "what do you wear, you know, in that area?" Luckily, a male staffer intervened. "You could go in the buff," he said. "A lot of guys do that." I took a pass on the underspray. "Or we could give you another bootie," he said.
Funny. I opted to wear my boxers. Then I put on a bathing cap, stepped into a round shower stall and hit the button marked "Start." I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. Ten seconds later, the blast begins. It's like a sticky-sweet steam room. The staffers told me to do a little side-step routine to expose hard-to-reach spots like the underarms. But as I was getting misted, I felt like a human M&M getting sugar-coated in some twisted Willy Wonka nightmare. Six seconds later, it was over - but my tan was just beginning.
It was time for Stage 2 - the rub-in. The staff told me to rub the self-tanner around as it was drying. You have to do it within a minute - otherwise you'll get streaking. The word "streaking" made me think about my boxer shorts. I looked down at them. They were sprayed bronze. My underwear had a tan! Not very presidential.
Phase 3 was nothing more than this: Don't take a shower. Not for at least 12 hours. I got tan, very tan - but not quite Kerry tan. And there's no debating that.