Welcome to Tandae, a passion project of mine for 14 months which was born initially out of a love for fake tan, a love for how it makes us all feel and a love for feeling my best and most confident.
Let me tell you about how this all started…
Rewind to when Rhys and I were on our honeymoon in 2023, I was complaining that my tan wasn’t dark enough, it didn’t last long enough and started to go scaly after just a few days. Bearing in mind, the tan I was using was the best it got from the 100’s of tans I had tried in the past, however it still wasn’t as good as it could be. I listed off all the tans that I had tried and explained to Rhys the positives and negatives of each (great chat for a honeymoon!).
It was in this conversation that I had a lightbulb moment, I decided that when I got home I would create my very own tan which had all the attributes of the great tans I had tried, without the negatives and put it into one easy to use formula.
I genuinely believed that creating this new ‘dream’ tan would be pretty straight forward, however I was so wrong!! I spent the next 9 months testing and reformulating the three different shades of tan over and over again but not one of them were any more special than something you could already find on the market.
In December 2023 I decided that perhaps it was impossible to find the perfect tan which I had dreamt of and I stopped the process of testing. I was simply not prepared to bring a tan to market that was ‘average’ and quite frankly I didn’t want to invest our money into something that wasn’t ground breaking.
During that month, I went back to my old tan which is very popular in the market and I quickly realised that there was seriously a need for something better. I just couldn’t use this tan forever. I drew up a list of all the attributes of a tan that were a non negotiable for me in order for me to proceed, which was:
- The Extra Dark had to be EXTRA dark, which didn’t run off in the shower.
- The dark had to be that perfect shade of brown which looks like you’ve just come back from 2 weeks in the Caribbean.
- The medium had to be that natural hint of brown that looked like you have the perfect glow.
- Looks fresh for 7 days or more.
- Does not get scaly and fades naturally.
- Does not smell of biscuits. It had to have a luxury scent to it.
- It had to be that good that people would want to know what tan I was wearing.
- It had to be made in the UK.
- And lastly, it had to be cruelty free.
So back I went to all the manufacturers I had been dealing with and was abundantly clear what I needed. What WE needed as a community. The gods were on our side, and by pure trial and error I came up with a formula that was like nothing else on the market. I did some final tweaks in the next few months to make it utterly perfect, added a luxury scent of bergamot, patchouli and vanilla and just like that after 12 months, Tandae was born. A tan, where everyday is a Tandae.
Rhys and I have put everything, quite literally everything into this. I simply wouldn’t have invested this much of our time and savings into something that wasn’t a product I genuinely believed in and wasn’t the best of the best.
We truly feel so passionate about Tandae and we have gone through every step of the process together. From creating the logos, to selecting finishes on the boxes and the labels, to selecting suppliers, to the little (but big things) like working out how to generate a barcode and to figuring out how many bottles fit on a palette.. we’ve done it all, and with one vision in mind: to create the best tan on the market which is accessible to everyone.
It has been such a journey to get to this point, filled with ups and downs but I am proud to share Tandae with you all, I just know you will love it as much as I do.
George xxx
Join the Tandae Community
Indulge in our collection of luxury self tan and join the Tandae community today. Whether you’re wanting a pre-holiday tan, you’re looking to add a glow back into your skin or you’re just wanting a natural looking tan for everyday, trust in Tandae to deliver.
