The thing about how Kim Kardashian looks today versus how she looked pre-Kanye is always going to be good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that Kim’s plastic surgery situation looked much better pre-Kanye. She’s been getting work done for so long that it’s difficult to remember that she was a genuinely and naturally pretty woman before all of the work. The good news is that Kim truly has improved her styling in general. I know that’s hard to believe, but she has. Her makeup used to be really crazy, her extensions used to look cheap and she used to wear really budget styles. Granted, whatever Kim wears looks kind of budget, but at least now she’s wearing better designers. While Kim was promoting her new line of fake tanner, she talked about spray tans, makeup and how she’s simplified her routine:

Kim’s got that glow! Kim Kardashian opened up to Us Weekly about her secret artillery of tanning tips and beauty tricks on Wednesday, Aug. 6, while promoting her family’s Kardashian Sun Kissed Line at Ulta in L.A. The reality megastar explained how her new life, as wife to Kanye West and mom to 13-month-old baby North, has affected her beauty regimen—though, according to Kardashian, it’s for the better.

“I used to spray tan more before I got married,” Kardashian, 33, told Us. “I would get it so dark and look so crazy.”

Now, as a working mom and wife, Kardashian has scaled back her frequent sessions.”I don’t really have as much time, so I just like to spray myself,” she said, revealing the low–maintenance method behind her glow. “The baby and husband are in bed sleeping, I spray myself and go to bed. No one wants to come in the middle of the night once everyone’s down, so it just makes it easy.”

Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney, whose new tanning line includes a gel (Kourtney’s face), foam (Khloe’s go-to), and spray (for Kim). “I think it’s super easy,” she said. “I travel so much. I love to take the spray and spray my face and my neck, and I do it in sections. I’ll do upper body one night. It’s hard to do it all at once.”

Having a gorgeous complexion and maintaining a perpetual glow is important to the star because it’s an easy way to look good. “It’s my secret weapon,” she revealed to Us. “I always tan before I go on vacation. I don’t like to go on vacation [pale] and have to work on my tan.”

The bronze goddess said it’s difficult, though, to achieve a natural glow as a parent. “I lay out a little bit,” she said, alluding to the recent pictures of her outdoors in a bikini. “But, especially now that I have the baby, I don’t have time. When she’s napping, I do.”

While Kim may soak up the sun alone, she loves to have her daughter’s company when she’s primping. “North actually will totally sit on my lap and is fascinated when I’m getting my hair blown out,” she told Us. “And when I’m getting my makeup done [too.] I’ll give her a little makeup brush, and she’ll be entertained.”

In the future, Kardashian said she may pass along the family tradition of makeup lessons to her daughter. “I think it would be a good idea to get her a makeup lesson like we did,” she told Us of the Christmas present her late father, Robert, gave Kim and Kourtney when they were teens. “He said, ‘If my girls are going to start wearing makeup, I want you to know how to wear it. I don’t want you looking crazy.’ That was the best gift,” she reflected. “And I have been obsessed with makeup ever since.”

[From Us Weekly]

I actually get what she says about starting a vacation with a tan. If I ever went on vacation, I would need to do that too and I have a similar kind of olive-y skin color. I prefer my skin darker, but I like a natural sun tan (that’s the best), and I’m totally not above going to a tanning bed. I haven’t been in years though (but I’ve thought about it). As for Kim trying to pretend that she spends all of this time with Nori… not so much.

At the same event, Kim also told People Magazine that Kanye prefers her blonde. She said: “Kanye likes the blonde. But I think I’m going to stay dark. I was talking about this yesterday actually with Kanye. He asked if I would ever go back to blonde. I was like, ‘Not right after a baby, because my face was so swollen and it looked like my lips were huge. My face was just off.’” Why do you think Kanye prefers her as a blonde? Because she looks like ten kinds of hell as a blonde. It just doesn’t suit her. Maybe Yeezus likes when she looks more like Beyonce? Beyonce’s blonde hair kills me a little too, because Beyonce’s blonde just… isn’t good. At all.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.