My Beauty Revolution: Bronzers As Bronzers

Another stereotype about Asians I want to put down: tanning-phobic. Americans have tanning-beds. Asians take whitening bath. But then both are aggressive for our skin. In Asia, whitening makeup and skincare sell like oil and gas and here we have spray tanner and bronzers. It sounds like no-brainer to create sun-kissed (or bronzed) complexion with bronzers. Ultimately, that's why they're called bronzers eh? I just didn't get it. Before you guys call me silly, I must confirm that I'm not afraid of being too pale nor too tan. In fact I really enjoy the tone and depth of my skin color, to the point that I didn't see any reason to warm it up or cool it down. So I used bronzers as blushes :D.

Then I found my perfect foundation match (Clarins Ever Matte, Burberry Sheer Luminous, and Tom Ford Traceless Stick) and realized that my face needed some dimension. The foundations even out my skin tone, which is awesome, yet also flatten my face. Since I'm not up to high-tech contoured cheekbones on a daily basis, faking sheen and bronzed cheeks sounds much easier. Now, I LOVE bronzers, those with satin finish in particular. 

Thanks to a shameful number of hours spent on blogs, tutorials, trials and errors, I finally figured ways to create an over all healthy looking skin. Here are how. 

Warm up my foundations especially for the forehead area. I've found peachy bronze is the most natural looking for this purpose and adding warmth to the high points of my face. Dior Aurora is my all time favorite. 

Add natural glow. I love bronzers with satin finish because my skin isn't completely matte. A matte bronzer doesn't look believable on me. Edward Bess Daydream works like a charm on my the high points of my cheeks. 

Create dimensions for my face. It doesn't necessarily sculpt my bone structures although we could use bronzers to contour the face for sure. Instead, I apply bronzers on to the areas where the sun naturally hits the face, i.e. forehead, sides of nose, apples of cheeks, and high-points of cheeks. Nars Laguna is a classic. For a total bronzed look, I love to layer Tom Ford blush in Savage on the apples of my cheeks on top of bronzers. This gorgeous red-tinted brown creates my natural redness when I got tanned.

I finally GOT IT.

Do you use bronzers at all? What are your favorites? And how do you use them?