They change your skin colour. They do not give you a tan. Those sound like the same sentence, but they're not, and the difference is the whole answer.
Carotenoids, the pigments in beta-carotene and astaxanthin, build up in fat under your skin and shift it warmer. That's real and measurable. It is not melanin, it offers no UV protection, and it takes about four weeks to show.
TINT≠TAN
One changes visible colour. The other is your body's UV response. A gummy only ever does the first one.
What the 2015 trial actually measured
The clearest evidence here comes from a study run at the University of Nottingham and published in PLOS ONE in 2015. Eighty-one people split into two groups; one drank a daily smoothie delivering 25.38 mg of total carotenoids, mostly beta-carotene. The other drank a low-carotenoid control. Skin was measured with a colorimeter, the instrument dermatologists use to record colour objectively rather than by eye, at four points across nine weeks.
Skin colour is scored on three axes. L* is lightness: how dark or pale. a* is redness. b* is yellowness. A suntan moves the first one. This trial didn't touch it, which is exactly what the figure below is built to show.
After four weeks on the smoothie, yellowness had risen 3.382 units and redness 1.077. Lightness, the axis a tan would move, hadn't shifted at all. So the honest description of what a carotenoid gummy does is: your skin gets warmer without getting darker. That's real, published and repeatable, and it's a different effect from the one the word "tanning" implies.
Why it isn't a tan, in the regulator's own words
"This coloration is not the result of an increase in the skin's supply of melanin, the substance produced naturally in the skin to help protect it against UV radiation."
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on ingested colour additivesThat single sentence, sitting on an FDA page that's been mostly unchanged since the mid-2000s, does more work than most marketing copy manages in a thousand words. Melanin does two jobs at once: it colours you, and because it absorbs UV, it shields you a little. A carotenoid tint only does the first one. The pigment sits in fat under your skin; it isn't part of your body's UV response, and it gives you nothing extra against the sun.
Practically: whatever sunscreen habit you had before a tanning gummy, keep it exactly the same after. Nothing about the tint changes that equation.
How long it takes
The trial's colour change was measurable at week four, not before. Nothing published shows a faster timeline than that, and no format (gummy, smoothie, capsule) changes the biology of how carotenoids accumulate in fat.
Nothing visible yet. Carotenoids are only beginning to accumulate in the fat layer under the skin.
Still building. This is the point most people quit, right before there's anything to see, which is exactly why the four-week figure matters more than the two-week one.
The trial's measurement point: yellowness up 3.382 units, redness up 1.077, lightness unmoved. The first point a change is plausibly visible.
Colour holds with continued daily use and fades within weeks of stopping; the NIH describes the effect as reversible.
Topical colour is the faster option: a self-tan lotion can give you colour for a date inside the next couple of weeks in a single evening. Tanning gummies are built for something different, a gradual daily approach rather than an event-driven one.
That's the appeal for a lot of people: two gummies a day, folded into whatever you're already taking, with nothing to apply, blend or wash your hands of afterward. You're trading a fast result for a routine you don't have to think about. If that trade sounds right for you, the next question is what's actually in the gummy.
What's actually in two Asuno gummies
An ingredient list tells you a substance is present. The amount tells you whether there's enough of it to matter, so here's what's on our own supplement facts panel, next to the dose the 2015 trial used:
total carotenoids/day, the dose that produced a measured colour change
total carotenoids/day: 4 mg beta-carotene + 2 mg astaxanthin, per 2-gummy serving
The study used 25.38 mg. Ours contains 6 mg, and we're printing both numbers because they aren't equivalent, so expectations should stay realistic and gradual rather than matched to the trial's four-week timeline. What that gives you is a clearly disclosed daily formula in a simple two-gummy routine, with the number that actually matters on any label in this category, milligrams per serving, printed rather than implied.
Claims worth checking
"It works like a spray tan you swallow: a weekend and you're sun-kissed."
What the evidence showsA slow pigment build-up in fat under the skin. The trial needed four weeks at a much higher dose than most gummies use. Days, it isn't.
"Since there's no sun involved, you can ease off sunscreen."
What the evidence showsA carotenoid tint isn't melanin, so it doesn't carry UV protection. Keep your sunscreen routine exactly as it was.
"More gummies, faster glow."
What the evidence showsThe tint builds at the pace carotenoids accumulate in fat, not at the pace you eat them, so doubling up doesn't bring the timeline forward. Two a day is the whole routine.
Is this your kind of routine?
Worth trying if
- You prefer gradual, low-effort warmth over an instant result
- You want something that folds into a routine you already keep
- You like knowing the exact formula before you buy
- You'd rather not add another topical product to apply and wash off
One exception worth knowing before you start: if you smoke or quit recently, beta-carotene supplements aren't a fit, covered in full in Are tanning gummies safe?
Tanning gummies tint; they don't tan. The colour comes from carotenoids collecting in fat under the skin, which is a real, measured effect, and it builds over roughly four weeks rather than overnight. Keep your sunscreen routine as it was. What you get in exchange is the simplest version of this there is: two gummies a day, with the amounts printed on the pouch.
What this means for Asuno
A measurable, published shift in skin colour (yellowness and redness) from daily carotenoid intake, visible from about four weeks.
The published trial used a different carotenoid amount, so it isn't a direct trial of our formula, and a carotenoid tint carries no UV protection.
4 mg beta-carotene and 2 mg astaxanthin per two-gummy serving, plus 50 mg vitamin C, printed on the panel above, not just implied.
In practice it's two peach-mango gummies with breakfast, and you can read the exact amounts off the back of the pouch before you buy. No canthaxanthin, ever.
Beta-carotene and astaxanthin with vitamin C, in a peach-mango gummy: two a day, worked into whatever routine you already have.
Questions people ask
Do tanning gummies work without sun?
How long does it take for tanning gummies to work?
Will they make me look orange?
Do I still need sunscreen?
How much beta-carotene and astaxanthin are in Asuno's gummies?
Are tanning gummies the same as the old tanning pills?
- Tan KW, Graf BA, Mitra SR, Stephen ID. Daily Consumption of a Fruit and Vegetable Smoothie Alters Facial Skin Color. PLOS ONE, 17 July 2015.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Tanning Pills. Content current as of 15 March 2022.
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Vitamin A and Carotenoids — Health Professional Fact Sheet. Updated 10 March 2025.
- Asuno Tanning Gummies supplement facts panel, as packaged and sold.
This article is general information about ingredients and published research. It isn't medical advice. If you're pregnant, breastfeeding, taking medication or managing a health condition, check with your doctor before starting any supplement.
