Does Just Nutritive Body Nutritive Serum Really Accelerate Your Tan? A Science-First Review

Last Updated on July 14, 2026 by Giorgia Guazzarotti

Looking for Just Nutritive Body Nutritive Serum Tanning reviews? A quick Google search shows this tanning oil has an army of raving fans that leave it positive reviews everywhere… but yours truly isn’t convinced. A quick look at the ingredient lists tells this trained skincare eye this is a nice moisturising oil blend wearing a “tan accelerator” costume more than anything else. How do I know? There’s no DHA, the active ingredient that gives you a tan. And without it, how the heck can this thing even help the tanning process?! Let’s find out:

Key Ingredients In Just Nutritive Body Nutritive Serum Tanning: What Makes It Work?

NATURAL OILS

This tanning lotion isn’t really a tanning lotion. It does NOT have DHA, the only active that can give you a fake tan. Instead, it’s loaded with natural oils, like hazelnut oil, walnut oil, and apricot kernel oil. Now, no oil speeds up the production of melanin. That’s triggered by UV hitting your skin, not by anything you rub on beforehand. What oils do is stop water loss, and hydrated skin doesn’t flake, so a tan on well-moisturised skin looks more even and lasts longer before it starts patch-peeling. 

• Hazelnut oil moisturises skin. It’s an emollient rich in oleic acid and phospholipids that sits on skin and slows water loss, keeping it hydrated and soft.
• Walnut oil moisturises skin. It’s an emollient rich in linoleic acid that helps reinforce the skin barrier, holding in moisture and softening skin.
• Apricot kernel oil moisturises skin too (duh!). It’s often used as a massage oil because it’s a light, fast-absorbing emollient rich in oleic and linoleic acid that softens skin without leaving it greasy.

Texture

​This absorbs way faster than you’d expect from something that’s 100% oil with zero water. It goes on silky, not greasy, and within a minute or so it’s sunk in. No sticky residue, no shiny film that stays put for the next hour. If you’ve used heavier body oils that leave you feeling like you need a towel afterward, this isn’t that. It’s light enough to layer under clothes pretty quickly.

Fragrance

​Herbal, not fruity or sweet. It makes sense given it’s built on geranium, grapefruit peel, and lavender oils rather than a synthetic fragrance blend. It’s noticeable when you first apply it and fades to something much subtler once it’s absorbed. If have sensitive skin, this is a no-no. It doesn’t matter is it comes from a synthetic molecule or natural ingredients, all fragrances can be irritating. Period.

How to Use It

​Best applied to damp skin. straight out of the shower works well, since it locks in the water that’s already on your skin rather than trying to add moisture to bone-dry skin from scratch. A few sprays go a long way; you don’t need to soak yourself. If you’re using it before sun exposure, apply it and give it a few minutes to absorb rather than heading straight out. It layers fine under a separate sunscreen, which (spoiler for the next section) you’ll want to actually use, because this isn’t one.

Packaging

​Comes in a dark glass bottle with a spray-top dispenser, which is honestly the right call for an oil. Pump or spray tops handle oil viscosity better than a standard lotion pump, and you don’t get any clogging or uneven spray. The dark glass also makes sense for protecting the oils inside from light degradation, since a few of the ingredients (grapefruit peel oil especially) aren’t things you want breaking down in a clear bottle sitting on a shelf.

Performance & Personal Opinion

​Here’s where I have to be blunt: this is a genuinely good moisturiser marketed as a tanning product, and those are two different things. Skin feels noticeably softer and less flaky within the first use thanks to the essential fatty acids in these oils. What it doesn’t do is make you tan faster or darker. There’s no DHA, no bronzer, nothing that changes your skin’s colour independent of actual sun exposure. So any glow you get is just your regular tan, not something the product accelerated (and I do hope that tan comes in a bottle because a real tan comes too much sun damage!). Plus, I wish it were fragrance-free. Essential oils are some of the worst offenders in skin care products. Just saying. And there’s no SPF in here at all, so if you’re using this as your only prep before sun time, you’re not protected. You need a separate sunscreen regardless of what the bottle promises. 

Does Just Nutritive Body Nutritive Serum Tanning Live Up To Its Claims?

Price & Availability

£48.70 at Amazon

The Verdict: Should You Buy It?

​I’d pass on this one, and not because the moisturising doesn’t work. It does. It’s just… Strip away the tanning claims entirely and judge it as a plain body lotion, and I’d still be cautious recommending it for regular use, especially on sensitive skin, purely because of the essential oil load. There are moisturising oils out there that do the same hydrating job without the fragrance-oil baggage, and I’d point people toward those instead.