Beauty
How It’s Made: Xen-Tan
Two women started out with the same skin tone. The one above applied Xen-Tan.
Fifteen years ago Dera Enochson was working behind a cosmetic counter at NM; and today her sunless tanning line Xen-Tan is on the shelves.
“Bobbi Brown came along and revolutionized the whole thing,” says Enochson, who spent the nineties working as a makeup artist for labels like Bobbi Brown, Laura Mercier, Trish McEvoy and Estee Lauder. “Foundation went from that pink-grey shade to all of a sudden being brown-based. Warm undertones look more realistic and natural.”
Xen-Tan founder Dera Enochson
A sample of sunless tanner blends in a beaker at the company's Dallas laboratory.
For the fair-skined redhead, the new wave of color options was life changing not only for her complexion, but for her career.
“When you see someone invent something and do it so well you think, ‘Gosh, how can I do something like this?’” Enochson says. “ I saw the impact her carefully undertoned products had on business, and how great they looked on customers.”
Testing a new batch of color at Xen-Tan's lab.
The female entrepreneurs she encountered and the customers who faced similar cosmetic challenges inspired Enochson to invent a product she had longed for her entire life – a natural-looking sunless tan.
“The self-tanners on the market were too yellowy and too orangey,” especially for redheads and other light skinned types, she says. “People who tan easily typically have olive skin, so I realized if I could make a product with more brown and olive tones it would look more natural on more people.”
After years of meeting with chemists, mixing batches of formulas, swatch testing on friends and family, and sporting a new skin tint every day, she finally found her match. Enochson launched Xen-Tan, a line of sunless tanners that looked realistic on her pale complexion and smelled pleasant rather than reeking of chemicals.
Enochson works with chemists daily to ensure each batch of sunless tanner is up to specifications.
The science behind Xen-Tan’s scent-free, smooth sunless tan: Trimethylpentanediol Adipic Acid Copolymer.
“This complex helps us to achieve our more olive tones by controlling the amount of DHA (dihydroxyacetone), the active ingredient that gives sunless tanners their color, that is released onto the skin,” she says of the time-release process.
“Women know that orange color or chemical odors can be an issue with self-tan,” she says. “We address these exact issues and combat them with our products.”
Xen-Tan 24K Absolute Gold Set
Find Xen-Tan at NeimanMarcus.com and Neiman Marcus stores.
