The Body Shop Honey Bronze Face Gel & Tinted Leg Mist

My neck and body have gone on a vacation, while my face has been living in Antarctica. Thus, I've come to the realization that I should probably take a break from my Asian "whitening" skincare products, as there is now a massive difference between the colour of my face and the colour of my neck and body. What's been helping me out? The Body Shop Honey Bronze Face Gel ($16). And while my legs are darker than my face, they're still a little pasty-looking from winter so The Body Shop Tinted Leg Mist ($20) has been helping me get my Summer glow on. 

The Body Shop Honey Bronze Face Gel

The Body Shop Honey Bronze Face Gel smells exactly like The Body Shop Honey Bronze Highlighting Domes, a light floral/sweet scent. It could bother some but it fades away within 5-10 minutes of application. The gel feels super light weight, almost watery in texture and slightly cooling.  The colour is a tad orange but extremely sheer and subtle without a trace of shimmer/glitter/iridescence, perfect for matching for my light-borderline-medium complexion to the rest of my body. The gel texture of the product sinks immediately into the skin, lasts ~6 hours and it's neither moisturizing nor drying. 

The Body Shop Honey Bronze Tinted Leg Mist

The word "mist" is misleading. The spraying contraption atop the Honey Bronze Tinted Leg Mist is kind of messy and sprays more product than you'd expect. It's runny and you'll definitely need your hands to distribute the product. A word of warning, you might want to apply this naked (or with minimal clothing) because it will stain. The good news? It's not at all streaky or shimmery. The colouring of the Honey Bronze Tinted Leg Mist is a little more potent than that of the Face Gel. Furthermore, it's slightly less orange and more bronze. Again, it works perfectly with my colouring for a subtle yet sun kissed tan. I have yet to experience the product transferring onto my clothing and it seems to last until I shower the product off. 

It's important to note that both the Honey Bronze Face Gel and Honey Bronze Tinted Leg Mist are non-permanent, wash-off tanning products. Overall, they both serve they're purpose. Since I'm working in an office this summer,  I'll happily be using these to look like I went on a vacation without needing to sit out in the sun! 

Do you use bronzing products on your face or body to colour correct? 

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MAKE UP FOR EVER Pro Sculpting Duo #2 in Golden

Contouring, highlighting and sculpting seem to be all the rage in the makeup world. To keep up with the trends, Make Up For Ever has launched its own Pro Sculpting Duos ($45), two sets of contour and highlighting powders that are weightless, blendable, and formulated with the same talc-free, gel-powder formula as the Make Up For Ever Artist Shadows. 

My skin tone is the awkward space between light and medium, which means that the bronzing powder is a tad too orange but the golden highlight is perfection. The Pro Sculpting Duos are available in two shades #1 (Pink Beige) and #2 (Golden). I presume the contour in the Pink Beige Duo would be perfect for my current complexion, while the #2 contour will suit me better in the summer. 

Personally, the matte contour shade seems more like a bronzer because of the strong warm undertone.   The highlight is super gorgeous and all-out shimmery golden glow. Both shades blend beautifully on the face and they last on the face until the second you feel like taking them off. 

Furthermore, MUFE doesn't mention this but the contour and highlight shades can both be used as eyeshadows. In addition to being a sculpting duo, it also works flawlessly as an eyeshadow duo. 

CONTOUR- across the hairline, below the cheekbone, around the jawline, all over the eyelids as eye shadow // HIGHLIGHT - on the cupids bow, above the cheekbones and on the bridge of the nose, in the inner eye corner as eye shadow

Hopefully, in the photo above, you can pick up on the gorgeousness that is the golden highlight. All in all, the MUFE Pro Sculpting Duo #2 in Golden is a beautiful product. But what I need from Make Up For Ever is this - a Pro Sculpting Duo #3 with the light/cool undertone contour powder and the golden highlight. 

What do you think of the MUFE Pro Sculpting Duo? Would you go for pink beige or golden? 

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Sephora Collection Bronzed and Blushing Face Palette

The Sephora Collection Bronzed and Blushing Face Palette ($18 CAD, exclusively at Sephora) contains one bronzer (Los Cabos) and two blushes (blushing pink and coral punch). Another limited edition palette for the holiday season, this one's great if you're going on vacation and want to add a little sun-kissed warmth to your winter skin. 

Los Cabos, Blushing Pink, Coral Punch

All three products in the palette are matte. HALLELUJAH. Los Cabos is a medium chocolate brown. It works better as a contour than a bronzer on my complexion, as it's lacking a lot of yellowy-orange tones. Blushing Pink is a pale rose and Coral Punch is just as the name says it is - a bright coral. Both blushes show up on my face. Blushing Pink adds a hint of colour while Coral Punch provides a warm flush to the face. 

The powders aren't the softest but the colour is easily picked up on a brush and transferred to the face. They're also quite buildable or blendable depending on if you like a softer or bolder cheek look. Wear time is less than perfect at 4-5 hours. 

Wearing - Los Cabos and Blushing Pink 

Overall, it's a great starter kit at a nice price. If you already own a lot of blushes/bronzers, you'll already have these basic colours in your collection (I know I do). Considering the Sephora Collection Bronzed and Blushing Face Palette contains 3 products at $18 total, that's $6 each - comparable to drugstore prices at Sephora Collection quality. 

What do you think of the Sephora Collection Bronzed and Blushing Face Palette?

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Sephora Collection All A Glow Contouring Face Palette

The Sephora Collection All A Glow Contouring Face Palette ($41 CAD, exclusively at Sephora) is yet another limited edition set. In a nutshell, it's a wallet-sized fold-able palette containing everything you should ever need for your face, convenient for different looks and skin tones - concealers, bronzers, powder blushes, cream blushes, cream highlighters, and powder highlighters. There's three shades of everything except for the four powder blushes. It also comes with step-by-step instructions for  Bronzed and Beautiful and Ethereal and Illuminated looks. 

I've honed down on which colours work for my light-medium (~MAC NC 30)  skin colour. So I'll attempt to describe each shade in the palette and if you're having a tl;dr moment, I'll also denote colours that I would personally use with a (*). 

The concealers are cream-to-powder and dry down to a matte finish that lasts ~5 hours when set with a powder. Be forewarned, the concealers work much better over big oily blemishes than ones that are already dried up, as the faux-powder finish exaggerates dryness. 

#1 - light, #2 - medium*, #3 - dark (with a prominent orange tinge)

The powder bronzers impressed me. They feel more finely milled and easily blend-able than I had expected (kind of like a really nice face powder - shade #1 actually works quite nicely as one). 

#1 - light, #2 - light-medium*, #3 - medium

The powder blushes are not quite as soft as the bronzers and as such, they don't apply quite as smoothly. I find the first much too light for my face and the second and third too overtly shimmery for my tastes. 

#1 - matte pastel pink, #2 - neutral pink with gold shimmer, #3 - peach with gold shimmer, #4 - matte hot pink*

I have the same qualms with the cream blushes as I do with the powder ones. The first two have a shimmery iridescence that is too much to apply all over the cheeks, while the last bright pink is absolute perfection. The cream blushes work well to prolong the longevity and pigmentation of the powders for up to 6 hours. 

#1 - neutral pink with gold shimmer, #2 - peach with gold shimmer, #3 - matte hot pink*

The shimmers in the cream highlighters are thankfully much finer than the blushes and cream blushes. The cream highlighters provide a natural sheen to the cheeks and dry down to a powdery finish (similar to the concealer). All three shades suit my complexion. 

#1 - pale yellow shimmer*, #2 - pale pink shimmer*, #3 - pale gold shimmer*

The powder highlighters have slightly more concentration of shimmer than the cream higlighters but the shimmers are still fine enough that they don't look chunky. The texture is similar to that of the powder blushes. I've never seen an orange tinted highlighter in my life, so I'm not sure why there's one included here. 

#1 - gold shimmer*, #2 - pink shimmer*, #3 - orange shimmer 

Before (looking a little tired and red-nosed...also one noteworthy zit and a few minimal blemishes) 

After (Wearing the Sephora Collection All A Glow Contouring Face Palette ONLY- #2 concealer, #2 bronzer, #1 powder blush (pale pink) , #3 cream blush (bright pink), #2 cream highlighter (pink frost) , #2 powder highlighter (pink frost)) 

There's a heck of a lot of product packed in this one wallet-sized palette. Some products were good (concealers, bronzers, cream blushes, both highlighters) but others missed the mark for me (shimmery blushes, orange highlighter). While it's awesome for travel, for the price, I'd rather get a couple individual products with formulas that I am above and beyond excited about. That being said, this will come in handy when I want to do makeup on a friend with a different skin tone from my own, so I truly appreciate the variety. 

What do you think of the All a Glow Contouring Face Palette? 

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NYC Smooth Skin Bronzer in Sunny

That's right. I've hit mad pan on this bronzer. The NYC Smooth Skin Bronzer in Sunny ($2.99) is absolutely, positively a cult favourite drugstore beauty product with some kick-butt bronzing ability. 

I've had this bronzer since before I started blogging and I've been swirling my Eco-tools face brush brush into it almost daily for the past two years. Funnily enough, it's also the first bronzer I ever purchased - and it's still going strong! The packaging has worn down over time and looks pretty janky, but the product itself has passed my rigorous "drop test" (not purposely) countless times and has held up very well - no cracks or messy floors in sight. 

The texture is as the name states. Smooth. The colour isn't too dark or light. For my light/medium skin, it's somewhere between a bronzy glow and a subtle contour. In the winter, I use it as a contour under my cheekbone and in the summer I can wear it a little higher up as a "blonzer" (bronzer placed where blush should be). Lucky for me, it's a the perfect shade of bronzer for me. 

I can tell the product is extraordinarily long lasting because at the end of the day when I remove my makeup with a wipe, the bronzer is one of the first things I spot on the cloth. 

My love for this product seems to speak for itself and it's about time that it gets a post of its own. It's often sidelined in posts but definitely there. If you scroll through my archives, I'm pretty sure 90% of my "makeup look" posts include this product. 

I only own 3 bronzers but this is the only one I actually use. If anything, the NYC Smooth Skin Bronzer is worth the $3 "splurge" - great pigmentation, not too orange-y, smooth, long-lasting. Rightfully so, it has holy grail status among the beauty blogger community. Do yourself a favour and pick one up (or at least give it a swatch). 

Have you tried the NYC Smooth Skin Bronzer in Sunny? 

Purchased by me

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