My right leg is a beauty battlefield. Eight mosquito bites from dining outside one night, a knee bruise from walking into a spin bike, and two minor cuts from tripping over an umbrella stand. Applying self-tanner has only highlighted these imperfections, turning my legs the color of a clumsy Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. Concealer has worked okay at halfheartedly concealing some of the spots, but would a BB cream work better?
Jergens, the creator of the best gradual self-tanner, has created a BB cream of sorts for the body, called the BB Body Skin Perfecting Cream. With a blend of shea butter (for moisture), silicones (for smoothness), and a smaller amount of DHA (for self-tanner purposes and to even skin tone) it promises, with gradual use over six days, to visually perfect your legs. While it can’t do butt-boosting exercises for you, it can soothe dry skin and help your legs look smoother.
The formula comes in two shades, “Light” and “Medium to Deep,” and has a consistency similar to that of Gwyneth’s favored leg makeup, Prtty Peaushun. It has the sweet, vaguely fruity smell of a drugstore product and not the rotten-cookie smell of DHA, with the slightly pearly undertone that you’ve come to expect in BB creams. When I applied it to the dry skin of my right leg, it gave off a slight radiance. Although the cream supplies a slight amount of pearlescence, my legs didn’t look over-the-top, men’s-magazine-level shiny after use. Two days later, I noticed that my legs looked the slightest bit tanner. Since it gave only the smallest amount of color, it couldn’t do much for my bruise — but it was effective at evening out some of my mosquito bites and minor cuts. It wasn’t quite as body-perfecting glam as Prtty Peaushun but was a nice touch-up to smooth on my legs before work. You can buy it here.
