I feel like more and more bronzers keep popping up on the market lately… and I ain’t mad about it because it’s one of my favourite face products to apply. I just love swirling my big ole brush in a massive pan of product and using it to warm up my face. It’s the next best thing to having a real tan, and obviously much, much better for your skin. I’ve been trying out the new(ish) Maybelline City Bronzer range lately for all of my bronzing needs.
The City Bronzers are actually labelled as a bronzer and contour product, but it’s going to depend entirely on your skintone if these will work for you as a contour shade. I don’t contour with any kind of frequency, so I use these strictly as a bronzer. The City Bronzers are infused with whipped cocoa butter and come in three matte-finish shades.
Of the three shades, I have 100 and 200 which are the most likely to suit me. There’s quite a shade gap between 100 and 200, so I think medium skintones may be able to use 200 if it’s applied quite heavily. 200 also has a bit more of a warmer edge when compared to 100. For me, 100 is a winter bronzer, and 200 is a summer bronzer on my skintone.
Since it’s July right now and I have a bit of sun on my face, 100 comes across very, very pale. You can barely even tell I have bronzer on my face in the above shot. For me, this makes it an ideal winter bronzer since I know it won’t look too obvious when I’m at my palest.
Right now, 200 definitely has more depth on my skin and I’ve been using it a lot to add some strength to my summer tan!
Final Thoughts
Although I didn’t use the Maybelline City Bronzers as a contour, I’m impressed that they lean neutral enough that I could’ve potentially used them that way if I wanted. Bronzers, for the most part, tend to have a very warm edge to them which can make them harder to wear as a contour product so it’s so nice to see a bronzer that isn’t so warm toned because not everyone is comfortable using such warm shades. In practice, they’re easy to apply and quite pigmented. I used a lighter hand for 200 in order to ensure I wasn’t going ham with the bronzer, but I think that’s good because medium skintones may be able to use as a bronzer. There is only one darker shade though (300), so I’m not sure how super deep skintones will fare with these shades.
TL;DR: Nice tones and good shades for light (potentially medium) skintones. Soft and easy to blend.
The Maybelline City Bronzers can be purchased on shoppersdrugmart.com for $10.99 CAD or on ulta.com for $9.99 USD each.
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