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