Bourjois 8 in 1 BB Bronzing Cream

 

I'm not really one for bronzing products, Nars Laguna is about as far as it goes to adding a little warmth to my face and even then I do so sparingly. The word 'bronze' alone is enough to give me a physical shudder and have me grimacing over images of orange umpa-lumpas. Needless to say I generally keep my distance from anything that has that word in the description. However with it now being June I can't deny that I don't crave a slightly more sun-kissed look but given that this is England I won't hold my breath. So when watching a video by Vivianna Does Makeup I was intrigued  by the sound of this product from Bourjois that received a mention.

 

 I did a further bit of research, read through review after review and even though the overall consensus of this product from reviews would be don't buy it, I went ahead and got it anyway. I'm not crazy though, as I think that a lot of people reviewing it were not necessarily using it in the most effective way, as I will explain below.

 

So first things first this only comes in one shade, meaning that its a universal product. Now I  wouldn't normally ever reach for a bottle this dark and I'm not going to lie it does also come out the pump looking rather daunting too (see following image). Even at my most tanned I doubt that this would ever be a match for my natural skintone, as you can see it is very dark and dare I say it orange looking.

 The key trick that I picked up from watching that video was to use this in addition to your normal foundation, sort of like a tint or built in bronzer. Given that my current everyday foundation was the one I purchased back in the winter from Rimmel, it is a very light shade which is beginning to notice with my slightly more freckled complexion. I was just going to buy the next shade up until I discovered this bronzing cream from Borjois and decided to give it a go. For comparisons sake I have included some swatches below.

Swatches taken in natural daylight.

 At the top is my original everyday foundation gently blended in, which as you can see is on the verge of being too light for my skin tone. Then we have the Borjois BB Cream blended in which is still obviously far too dark. However when taking my Rimmel foundation and a rather small amount of the Borjois BB cream together and blending it you can see that it makes a noticable difference and creates a shade that is actually wearable. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the effect of these two products together.

The Borjois BB cream really does enhance the colour of my otherwise pale Rimmel foundation and creates a lovely healthy glow when blended out evenly across my face. It is quite surprising how natural the two combined appear given how dark and scary the BB cream looks alone. I feel like it makes my foundation more radiant while still managing to keep it from being too 'bronze'. I'm definitely glad that I gave this a try and would recommend this to those in the same situation as me where me your foundation is maybe getting a bit pale and you want to achieve a more sunkissed face without over doing things. One for your makeup bag this summer I think!

What bronzing products do you use on your face?