An 'effortless' bronzed, summery look when you're pale is never going to actually be effortless- it's just never gonna happen. If you can roll out of bed in the morning and look beach ready just by swiping on some bronzer and scrunching a bit of salt spray into your hair, count yourself extremely lucky; I think the fact that it's taken me two layers of fake tan, two different bronzers and enough peach blush to put well...a peach to shame speaks wonders really. I'm sure those of you who are 'pigmentally challenged' like myself will understand- so to get a bit of colour in my pale face it's all about fake tan and makeup. I'm in no way suggesting that this is summer appropriate makeup (I wouldn't fancy sweating all of these layers off) but if you're wanting to look a bit bronzey for photos or a night out it can be done. Here are some of the products I use!
St Moritz Fake Tan in Medium
Good old St Moritz, the best of the budget fake tans. Any bronzey look is going to involve some kind of fake tan as a base, and this is the one I've used for close to two years now. I will say that if you're quite pale and plan on putting this tan on your face, you WILL need to apply foundation over the top to even it out and sort out the colour. While it looks nice under makeup (and is fine as a body tanner) I just find the colour looks a bit unnatural on the face if you have nothing else on it. If I was planning on having lighter makeup I'd go for a lighter and more subtle facial fake tan, but in order to actually get a base colour onto the skin this is always the way I've done it.
Elf Cream Contour Palette
After applying a foundation (I use one that's good few shades darker than my usual shade to match the fake tan) I go in with a cream bronzer, for this look I went with the St Lucia palette by Elf. I apply this to the usual contour areas- the hollows of the cheeks, temples and jawline which puts down the contour and some colour. I also apply the peach cream blush to the tops of the cheekbones. This is a great little duo, while the shades are better suited to a more medium skin tone it's perfect for when I'm fake tanning and need something a little darker.
Benefit Hoola/ Mac Peaches
Once I'm done with the cream products I set them with powder bronzer and blush, this makes everything last for a lot longer and also gives me the chance to finally even everything out. I've used Hoola to keep this look matte, but a shimmery/ sheeny bronzer would also look nice here too (I spoke about some of my current favourite bronzers here). Finally after bronzing I add the final colour to my cheeks with a peach blush. Peaches by Mac is still my favourite, it's been used and abused so much now the packaging is falling apart and everything. It's just something everyone should have in their collection as it would look great on just about any skin tone. I think a peach rather than a pink or coral blush adds more warmth to the skin and compliments the rest of the bronzey look really nicely.
Kate Moss for Rimmel Shade 26/ Urban Decay Naked Palette
Once the bronzed base makeup is complete, I think warmer toned eye and lip colours really finish everything off. I only really reach for my original Naked palette when I've been fake tanning, but it's the best thing ever for a golden makeup look. I mainly used the shades Half Baked and Creep to do a gold smokey eye. And finally Shade 26 from the Rimmel/ Kate Moss collection is my favourite warmer toned nude lipstick.
How do you fake a bronzed glow over the summer?
