Donald Trump's Worst Fake Tan Fails Of 2024

Thanks to the United States presidential election, Donald Trump was back in the spotlight in 2024 more than in the past three years. And while his divisive politics hogged plenty of headlines, Trump's infamous use of fake tanner and his orange glow were never far behind. The Republican politician's history with this beauty procedure stretches all the way back to his high school days.

According to The Washington Post, a former roommate revealed that Trump would always spend time fake tanning before hitting the beach. Fast forward a few decades, and former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman now claims the then-president even fired a White House employee for carelessly handling his tanning beds. Unfortunately, his devotion to fake tanning proves you can love something without necessarily being good at it. For reasons only he knows, the MAGA leader doesn't seem to have a tanning expert on speed dial.

Time and again, he's shown up sporting badly done tans, with his skin tone swinging wildly from brown to orange. The glaring tan lines around his eyes and sides of his face have officially become his signature markings. And let's not forget the hair — Trump's light blonde locks don't exactly help matters. His scalp often peeks through, contrasting with his ever-colorful skin, and making us wish he'd hire a full-time beauty expert. 

Donald Trump kicked off 2020 with a mega makeup and tan fail during his January 6 rally at Clinton Middle School. He debuted a burnt orange look that was especially concentrated on his cheeks and jawline, leaving the areas around his eyes in stark, glaring contrast. It's hard not to wonder if Trump's constantly shifting skin tones are for the same reason his hair is ever-changing.

According to Page Six, a source revealed that Trump's impatience extends far beyond politics and into the salon chair. "Trump's hair color can vary wildly from dark blond to light — to bright orange — depending on how long his hairdresser can get him to sit still and let the color do its job," they said. If Trump brings the same level of impatience to his tanning routine, it would explain why his skin tone is never consistent.

But here's the thing: unlike hair, his uneven skin color could actually be fixed with a little bit of makeup. The president-elect is reportedly no stranger to contour and bronzer, which makes it all the more baffling that he doesn't address the obvious flaws in his appearance. A little blending in the right places could save him from looking like a living, breathing orange color palette.

During Donald Trump's hush money case in April 2024, the politician and his bad tan were front center stage. To be fair, bad tans are nothing new for the former president, but this time, the photographers were keen on getting as many shots of him as possible. As you can probably guess, his fake tan stopped abruptly on different areas of his face, eyes, and ears.

This, of course, is yet another glaring sign that Trump's tans are self-inflicted. Anyone who's ever visited a beauty consultant knows they ensure all visible parts of your body match and are the same shade. Amusingly, Trump's bad tan has aestheticians everywhere fantasizing about taking him on as a client.

Jason Kelly, a renowned makeup artist, shared his thoughts with Harper's Bazaar in 2016: "I'm prepared if it does happen. I know exactly what he does to himself — the tanning bed, the spray tan, he wears the goggles and you can see the hyper-pigmentation around his eyes. What I'll do is use a slightly deeper color and blend it into his tan so there's not an abrupt contrast. I'm ready for it."

Politicians in the United States are often picked on, with their flaws magnified to unrealistic extremes. Donald Trump, for example, is frequently depicted as orange with wispy, side-swept hair. However, his August 2024 appearance at Wilkes Barre in Pennsylvania proves that these depictions aren't mean — they're spot-on accurate.

In fact, high-profile makeup artist Safia Cox noted that Trump appeared even more orange in 2024 than ever before. "I think it's some sort of fake tan or some sort of tinted moisturizer with bronzer, and he's then used powder with it. It's definitely some sort of cream product that he uses and has probably mattified it after because it's so orange," she said to The Mirror.

Cox also offered insight into Trump's makeup choices: "I think it's as he's gotten older and potentially a little more insecure." This theory doesn't seem far-fetched, considering his well-documented ego. Let's not forget the time Trump reportedly posed as a publicist to boast about the attention he received from women.

When Donald Trump showed up at the Hispanic roundtable in October 2024, it was glaringly obvious that he had once again done his tan without the help of a professional. Ironically, the meeting took place at Nevada's Beauty Society, leaving us to imagine how many beauty experts in the room mentally cringed at the spectacle.

This particular photo is one of the rare instances where Trump is caught smiling cutely, but even that can't distract from his unnaturally colored face. The unevenness brings Jimmy Kimmel's analysis of Trump's beauty routine to mind: "He dips a pillow in cheese dust and just starts whacking himself in the face with it" (via YouTube).

The GOP politician also seems to have switched up his usual tanning goggles this time. While we've grown accustomed to his signature raccoon eyes, this picture suggests he either misplaced the goggles entirely or chose a makeshift solution to block out his eye region as well as the space between his brows. On a more positive note, we got our photo editors at Static Media to give us another version of this photo so we could see Donald Trump without his disastrous tan. Following the results, we have three simple words for the politician: ditch the tan.

In October 2024, Donald Trump visited Allentown, Pennsylvania to campaign at the PPL Center, and the resulting photos had social media users debating whether Photoshop was involved. Somehow, Trump managed to nail the painful sunburn look with his artificial tan, once again skipping any effort to address his eyes or eyebrows.

To no one's surprise, the politician's orangey appearance seems to bother everyone — except, of course, him. Speaking to The New York Times, Dr. Tina Alster revealed back in 2019 that she had been consulted about Trump's infamous tan. "There have been enough people that have asked me in his orbit, though not on the president's behalf, to see what Mr. Trump could do to achieve a more even skin tone."

Although Dr. Alster offered advice on changing his application methods, it seems Trump hasn't taken it — or even heard it. Worse still, this close-up photo shows visible signs of sun damage on his forehead, a side effect Dr. Alster had warned about. If Trump doesn't give up his bad fake-tan habits soon, his skin could face even more serious consequences.

Donald Trump's visit to the Trump National Doral Golf Club to commemorate the attacks and raids on Israeli towns by Hamas was a serious occasion. While the politician appeared appropriately somber, his tan was at its worst. The former president seemed to have completely neglected the sides of his face and under-eye area during his beauty preparation, leaving a patchy look that made him appear older than ever.

On the plus side, the uneven tan and aged look almost suited the somber mood of the occasion. Unfortunately, Trump didn't keep this look limited to somber events. Just two days later, a very patched Trump showed up at a campaign rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, with the same blotchy tan on full display.

Interestingly, Luna Viola, a renowned makeup artist, spoke to Nicki Swift months earlier about Trump's peculiar look and revealed that his bad tan wasn't fully to blame: "Donald's skin looks very dehydrated with an uneven skin tone. This is due to a combination of poor diet, hormones, and environmental factors like the weather."

When Donald Trump arrived at North Carolina's J.S. Dorton Arena on November 4, 2024, it was obvious he had a lot on his mind, with the election only a day away. However, his tanning disaster made it nearly impossible to take any images from the event seriously. His tan was most intense on his cheeks and nose, leaving parts of his forehead and eye area looking oddly unnatural in comparison. Worse still, his hands were bare of any coloring, making the difference quite obvious. Trump also seemed to add a new step to his beauty routine that tried and failed to hide his fake tan.

This only adds weight to makeup artist Kimberly Bosso's theory that Trump is entirely in charge of his own look. "There is absolutely no way a professional make-up artist is doing this for him voluntarily," she said to the Daily Mail. "Even the most unskilled, novice artist would know to blend the space beneath his eyes with a concealer to match the foundation shade on the rest of his face. I'm sure they would be embarrassed to have their client walk out with abrupt white circles like his." If Bosso's theory holds water, we might be in for either Trump-sponsored tanning beds or a juicy tell-all from his makeup artist in the future.