This new 2013 addition to Physician’s Formula’s Bronze Booster line of bronzers wins the longest name award – it’s apparently called the Bronze Booster Glow-Boosting Airbrushing Veil – Deluxe Edition. It comes in two shades — Light/Medium and Medium/Dark — and I purchased both to swatch and review.
I don’t like the packaging – it’s a large, rounded-bottom compact with a brush included. I almost always dislike included brushes because I prefer to use my own tools and they just take up space. This is no exception – the compact would be sleek and pretty without the brush, but with it, it’s bulky and annoying. The brush is a nice shape, but it’s a bit scratchy and I don’t plan to use it.
packaging; compact with included brush
The bronzer itself, however, is lovely – I really like the sunburst design, and (to be perfectly honest) it’s the main reason I was attracted to these bronzers in the first place. It makes me wish the compact were prettier to better show off the design! Do note that the bronzer is quite soft, so the sun design will wear away quickly. I swatched from one edge, and the design is already gone from that area of the bronzers.
Light / Medium
Medium / Dark
The bronzers appear to have a very metallic sheen in the pan, and I was curious as to whether it was an overspray, or if they were the same texture all the way through. I dug a little way into one, and can confirm that there is no overspray – the top layer swatches identically to the lower layers.
Texturewise, these bronzers are very soft (almost to the point of being crumbly), and very smooth. They are quite pigmented, and quite shimmery – I personally would not consider using them to contour, and I probably wouldn’t use them as bronzer either. I think they’d actually make fantastic highlighters for darker-skinned women. I also tested them out as eyeshadow, and they work well – they’re on the sheer side for eyeshadow, but workable, and very pretty.
Light / Medium: Heavy swatch, blended swatch
Medium / Dark: Heavy swatch, blended swatch
Comparison: Light / Medium, Medium / Dark
Overall, I’d recommend these if you’re looking for a glowy, shimmery bronzer. The bulky packaging isn’t my favorite, but the design is very pretty! The product itself is of nice quality – soft, pigmented, and very blendable, and the two colors are both wearable and nice. These are expensive – I see them on Ulta.com for $15.99 each – but Physician’s Formula frequently has great sales at the drugstore — 40% off, $6 off any product, etc. The new displays of these also have $3 off stickers (mine did), which can be combined with other discounts.
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