Coco & Eve Sunny Honey Bali Bronzing Foam has the best record on smell: 22 of 24 reviewers who mentioned it said it has little or no tan smell. Most reviewers weighed in on St. Tropez Purity Bronzing Water Face Mist, and 40 of 54 said the same. Every product here still has some reviewers who say it smells, so a lighter smell is a fair hope and not a promise.
Updated . How we count
Share of reviewers who stated an outcome for smell. Ranked by the lower bound of a 90% confidence interval, so a product needs both a good share and enough reports to rank high.
Best record Coco & Eve Sunny Honey Bali Bronzing Foam 22 of 24 say it doesn't smell See price & reviews on Amazon Coco & Eve holds both of the first two spots, with a foam and a face mist.
Praise and complaints are the points reviewers repeat most, shown as a share of each product's counted store reviews.
Coco & Eve
Strong at Ulta, where it is 22 of 24. 28% call the color natural, and 12% say it turns orange.
Coco & Eve
Best for face tanning
A face mist ranked on Ulta reviews, where it is 9 of 10. 30% call the color natural. On Coco & Eve's own site, 19 of 20 say it has little or no smell, which we show but don't count.
No repeated complaints yet.
St. Tropez
Sold at Sephora. 30% call the color natural. Among dry-skin reviewers it is 3 of 6, against 11 of 12 among combination-skin reviewers.
St. Tropez
More reviewers weighed in on this one than on any other (54). It lands in the same place at both stores: 19 of 26 at Ulta and 21 of 28 at Sephora. 32% call the color natural.
Bondi Sands
Ranked from Ulta reviews alone. 40% call the color natural, but 6 of 27 said it smells and 13% say it transfers onto sheets or clothes.
Tanologist
A drops formula. 30% call it easy to apply, but 8 of 23 reviewers who mentioned smell said it smells like a self tan.
Isle of Paradise
Has the weakest record here at 15 of 25. 20% say it turns orange. Among normal-skin reviewers it is 6 of 7, against 5 of 12 among combination-skin reviewers.
The 7 products ranked here carry 17,775 reviews at Ulta and Sephora. We searched them for smell and read the newest matching reviews, up to 30 per product and store, posted between Jun 2021 and Sep 2026.
A review counts only when the reviewer used the product themselves. We drop reviews written in exchange for a free product or a sweepstakes entry (0 on this page), and products that are no longer sold.
Ulta also shows reviews first posted on brands' own websites. They run much more positive than store reviews of the same products (across 19 products with both, 76% of brand-site reviewers said the product solved the problem, against 55% of Ulta shoppers), so we show them on product cards but never count them.
Because we searched for the problem, people who had it are overrepresented. Compare products with each other rather than reading a share as your own odds.
Skin type, skin tone and age splits use what reviewers chose on Sephora's review form (and age on Ulta's when given). We only show a split when enough reviewers fall on each side.
Amazon buttons appear only on products that most reviewers here say fix the problem (at least 60%, with enough reviews to trust it). Everything else gets no buy link.
An AI model labels each review against a fixed list of points, and we spot-check the labels before publishing. We publish counts, never the reviews themselves.
Coco & Eve Sunny Honey Bali Bronzing Foam leads at 22 of 24, with Coco & Eve Face Tanning Micromist next at 9 of 10. Both are from Coco & Eve.
Mostly not, though not for everyone. 40 of 54 said St. Tropez Purity Bronzing Water Face Mist has little or no smell, and 23 of 29 said the same for St. Tropez Tan Tonic Glow Drops. Some reviewers still notice a tan smell with both.
For some buyers it does. 6 of 27 reviewers who mentioned smell said it has a noticeable tan smell.
It has the weakest record here: 15 of 25 said little or no smell, so 10 of 25 noticed a tan smell.
HiveTried earns a commission when you buy through the "See price & reviews on Amazon" buttons. It never changes the ranking: the order comes from buyer reports only, and a product gets an Amazon button only when buyers here say it works.