Bronze Corail Soliel Tan de Chanel Review - Summer 2011

There are two versions of bronzer in Chanel's Summer 2011 collection, Bronze Corail and Bronze Rose. I chose Bronze Corail because I always tend to prefer corals over rose colours and I'd been using my MAC Stereo Rose MSF a lot so wanted something else corally but I'd also been into bronzers, this seemed to fit the bill.

It is a striped palette, it reminds me a bit of Bobbi Brown Shimmer Bricks (but much less shimmery). It has four shades of powder, a bronzey brown, a pale peach, a deeper brown and a pink coral. All of the colours are on the warm side so definitely more suited to warmer skin tones. They can be used alone if you want, the thin rectangular brush supplied allows you to pick each shade out individually. You could also use two colours together - the lighter brown with the peach for a subtle highlight effect, the peach with the deeper brown for a subtle bronze or the deeper brown and coral for a bronzed blush. Or you could use the top three shades together to get a beautiful bronzed look and then the coral alone as blush. You could even use the shades on your eyes if you wanted or was travelling light. When all of the colours are mixed together they create a subtle bronze with a champagne sheen, and light coral tones. Very pretty and hard to mess up as it is so subtle, yet buildable. However, if you want something more pigmented, this wont be for you.

L-R: Bronze Corail, Bronze Corail blended out.

The brush supplied is okay, not my favourite brush ever but it does the job. I found it a little difficult to use because I ended up with a bit of a stripe the first few times I tried it but after a few goes, I got the hang of it. I still prefer using a round brush with it however. I tried my MAC 129 brush, mine is quite rough unfortunately, it probably needs a good conditioning, but I found this buffed the colour out too much so I went for a softer brush instead. I chose the MAC 168 to diffuse the colour more gently so I still had it where I wanted it but could blend it better. This was also handy because of the angle in it so I could use the bronzer in other areas of my face such as around my temples with ease. A stippling brush might be a good choice too.

The compact is sleek as per Chanel's usual standard and it contains a very handy mirror in the lid which is the same size as the compact and allows you to see your whole face easily without having to do your makeup at arms length. You also get a nice suedette bag to keep the compact in so it doesn't get scratched and to minimise fingerprints all over the glossy black casing.

The quality of the powder is so soft so whilst it blends beautifully on the skin, it can kick up a lot of dust which I found annoying and made the compact very messy after each use so be careful when using it. Another downside is the price, it costs £32.50 for 14g/0.49oz so it costs £2.32 per gram compared to a MAC bronzer which costs £17.50 for 10g/0.30oz which works out as £1.75 per gram. So whilst you do get a lot of product and it is more versatile than a MAC bronzer which only contains one shade, if you are going to use it swirled together all the time, unless you really love the colour, consider something cheaper instead.

- Jennifer

MAC Surf Baby Studio Careblend Powder and Skinsheen Bronzer Stick Review

This is my last part of the Surf Baby reviews!

In the Surf Baby collection, MAC have released two new kinds of bronzers, a cream bronzer in a stick format and new Studio Careblend Powders in tanned colours. I was in the market for a new bronzer as I only owned Golden by MAC which is very light and barely shows up on my skin. Originally I ordered the Skinsheen Bronzer Stick in Tan Tint because I'd seen some cream bronzers used by Youtubers and this one looked nifty even though I ordered it completely blind as I'd not seen any swatches or reviews. After reading about the Careblends, I ordered Lush-Light Bronze which is darker than Tan Tint so then I had a little bit of choice of colours that would actually show on my skin.

Read on for Review...

MAC Wonder Woman Pink Power MSF Review

When I saw that MAC were releasing new Mineralize Skinfishes with the Wonder Woman collection I was so excited. I love MSFs, I only had one beforehand (Stereo Rose) but really liked how they looked in other bloggers swatches and FOTD looks. With Wonder Woman, MAC brought out two shades of MSF, one being a dark tanned trio, the other being a lighter pink trio. I went for the pink version as the dark one would have been quite orange on me as it is more suited for deep skintones.

These are a new style of MSFs where the powder isn't swirled together like others such as Stereo Rose, instead split into three sections which you can swirl together or use individually as blush, highlight and contour colours. These ones are also jumbo sized, being 20g of product compared to the regular 10g. They are enormous - which is great to be able to use each colour individually plus they make excellent value for money being only a few extra pounds more than the regular 10g sized MSFs. However, if you are one that likes to pop their products in their bag for a top up, these are quite clumsy and would take up a lot of space. I only carry lip products so it doesn't bother me. I do think it is a shame there is no mirror in the lid because the compact is large enough for a decent sized one but then that would have been something else to increase the price.

The highlighting shade is a shimmery champagne shade, it is quite shimmery but not glittery. The blush shade is a peachy pink with shimmer, a really nice colour. The bronzing shade is a reddish brown but isn't too orange however a light hand would be wise, building colour if desired. It has a subtle sheen to it.

Pictures and swatches...

Benefit Powder Time Lover

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Benefit. I tend to buy things from them and then get them home and go 'meh' but for some reason they manage to lure me back again and again. This time it was because Debenhams had a sale on and this was included. The day before I had visited a Benefit counter in Brighton and had a quick look at some of the things but was pestered by one of the counter girls because I was touching things and she asked me if I was actually going to buy anything. I told her I was browsing and then picked up a catalogue and left. Silly girl, I would have probably bought something had she left me to it. I hate being pressurised in stores, if sales assistants do it, I'm off. I just like to browse before asking for help but anyway, rant over.

The catalogue had this amazing smell coming out of it from one of the perfume scratch and sniff pages and it got me a bit addicted to the catalogue so I decided to go online shopping for this perfume but couldn't find it on Benefit's website and then ended up seeing the Debenhams sale and spotted this mini collection of boxed powders - one of the things I'd been playing with the day before.

It was just over £16 I think and was originally about £10 more so I thought it would be good to try out. I'm glad I did, they're really nice and one of the few Benefit products I've fallen for.