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The best bronzing drops for keeping hold of your holiday glow
Achieve a sun-kissed look straight from the bottle with these clever beauty buys
Call it the drip, drip, drip effect, but with bronzing drops making a splash, I’ve been dipping in to check them out. Not to be confused with tanning drops that contain DHA (the self-tanning agent), they offer an easy way to give your complexion instant radiance and pull off the brilliant trick of prolonging a post-holiday glow.
Liquid in consistency, bronzing drops are packed with pigment. Most are glimmery and come in shades from subtle rose-gold to big-it-up bronzes. So how do you use them? Well, that is largely up to you as they’re very customisable. Their main modus operandi, however, is to invite you to go full alchemist and mix them with your favourite facial oil, moisturiser or serum. Simply place moisturiser in your palm, add one or two drops of your bronzer, blend together and use all over your face for a fast shot of luminosity.
Make-up pros love them because they tend to give a more natural finish than bronzing powders, and I’ve joined the party because they allow you to control intensity of shade. Given the results also wash off, they provide anyone nervous of using actual self-tan on their face (me) a chance to experiment with zero commitment.
Drunk Elephant cultivated my conversion with its D-Bronzi Anti-Pollution Sunshine Drops (£33, drunkelephant.co.uk), containing skin-loving vitamins, antioxidants, peptides and fatty acids. Highly concentrated, these are designed to be a good mixer. But they can be hard to get your hands on as they often sell out super-fast. Should you draw a blank, there’s a wave of others to try (see my suggestions).
You can also add most bronzing drops to your foundation, while those with subtle tones, eg rose-gold or champagne shades, work well undiluted under foundation. Smoothing on a sheer layer as a background base of radiance can bring a nicely nuanced result with dewy depth. And because they are liquid and lush in texture, they give foundation more ‘slip’.
Left to right: Drunk Elephant D-Bronzi Anti-Pollution Sunshine Drops; Pai’s The Impossible Glow; Drunk Elephant B-Goldi Bright Drops; Superdrug’s U-Dew-U Bronzing Drops
If you’re not into adopting the all-over approach, you can use them to mimic touchpoints of light. Simply use instead of blusher, blending high on the cheekbones. Balance the look by dabbing on to brow bones – you can also dot a teeny bit above the cupid’s bow of your lips.
For a quartet of quality performers, first I’m shining a light on Pai’s The Impossible Glow (£19, paiskincare.com). Not only does this come in three shades, it contains hyaluronic acid and sea kelp to boost hydration. Beautiful.
Later this month, Drunk Elephant debuts the D-Bronzi drops’ sister act, B-Goldi Bright Drops (£33, spacenk.com, from 26 September), with ingredients such as niacinamide to help even out tone. I’ve tried pre-launch dabs from the PR’s demo pot, and like them because they are gloriously golden without being a glitter-fest.
Tan-Luxe Super Gloss Illuminating Bronzing Drops (£28.20, cultbeauty.co.uk) look dark in the dropper, but this sheer serum is designed to spread easily straight out of the bottle on to skin. Although it’s SPF 30,
I don’t apply nearly enough to reach that level of protection. In any case, if you’re using any bronzing drops for daytime, you should apply a high-SPF sunscreen first. Then you’re good to glow.
Last but not least, there are Studio London by Superdrug’s U-Dew-U Bronzing Drops – though they are kind of least at £5 (superdrug.com). As they pack a pigment punch, you need to use very little, so the cost-per-wear is too low to compute – a real bronze bargain.
More from Jan Masters: The tweakment trap – and ways to avoid it